But I was not to be so lucky.
She picked up the tweezers and proceeded to peel off the strips of tape, releasing a foul scent. My palms started bleeding again, but I still felt nothing.
After another spray from the nozzles, she took an implement like flat-tipped tweezers with incurved gripping edges, and pushed together the sides of the cuts, while with the other hand, she took a pen-like device made of metal, which she ran over the jagged cuts. I could have sworn the metal glowed with a faint greenish aura. Steam rose where it touched my skin, but I felt no pain.
Slowly, with a sure hand, she worked over all the cuts. The metal pen appeared to seal my skin and left it shiny but less red.
She treated both my hands this way, then put down the implements. “Move your hands.”
I did. The cuts had indeed sealed together, almost as if new skin had formed.
“Hurt?”
“No, not at all.” I clenched my fist and let it relax again, staring at my palm. It was sensitive, not entirely healed but much better. “Is there anything I should do? Keep my hands dry? Can I bathe?”
She met my eyes squarely. “Hands gone bad like this because you never take bath. Must keep clean.”
Was there a more blunt way of saying I stank? “I will do that. Thank you.”
I stared after her back, realising that during the entire conversation I had not thought about pronouns.
In the afternoon, I received a terse statement from Danziger’s secretary about the military blockade of the Exchange, mentioning that I was one of the individuals sanctioned to enter, from which I deduced that Danziger wanted me to come back.
To my question clarifying if this was indeed so, I received no reply, so I wrote that if Danziger did want me to come back, I would need some funds first.
To which there was also no reply.
Communication failure? I didn’t believe it. Not for this long. I knew Nations of Earth couldn’t communicate with me without gamra listening in, and this probably meant, or rather I feared, that Nations of Earth were being deliberately obtuse because they had found something significant.
The news services only reported that Danziger would make a general statement immediately following Sirkonen’s funeral.
I concluded that was going to be it.
Unfortunately, the timing of the statement fell just after my speech.
What if Danziger had found evidence of Asto’s involvement?
There was no reason for them to be involved. If Asto interests had killed Sirkonen, Asto would lose much more than control over two hundred thousand of its citizens. They would lose their standing as a non-aggressive entity within gamra. A lot of entities would no longer be happy to vote with them.
Meanwhile, the bullying Asto delegation held a deadline over my head, almost like one of their damn writs. Respond satisfactorily or else. And no one was cooperating.
I submitted an application to gamra administration to meet Delegate Akhtari and to my surprise, was granted a short audience. Maybe the reason I’d given for wanting the meeting, to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe, had something to do with it. Maybe not. Gamra entities could learn a thing or two from Earth about humanitarian aid in major crises.
And so I put on my new uniform, submitted my cheeks to another round of torture, never mind what had happened to that elusive shaver. By now I was starting to fear I’d forgotten to pack it, and I wondered how that poor abused razor was going to hold out for six months.
Delegate Akhtari met me in her office, seated behind a gleaming, kidney-shaped desk, and listened to my plea. When I had finished, she clasped her hands before her, and said, “Delegate, the situation is stable. Without gamra and the Exchange, Nations of Earth forces are not going to harm any other entities, are they?”
Isolationist policies, at which gamra excelled. Got a problem? Isolate it and ignore it. I bit down on my frustration. “Delegate, the situation is sliding into war. There is a large population of Coldi trapped on Earth. Asto is readying military to free them.”
“They won’t be used. The Asto delegation assures that.”
“That was not the impression they gave me.” Pronouns, Delegate, pronouns! Not such a good idea to use the offended-me in this case. “Delegate, I think the establishment needs to move with some urgency to allay suspicion that gamra had a hand in the attack on the president, and is willing to help solve this crime. When that statement is forthcoming, I can negotiate the withdrawal of Nations of Earth military forces so that normal Exchange traffic can resume.”
“The establishment has been assured by the highest Asto authority that there will be no action until after zhamata. The Asto delegation have given the assurance that the Delegate understands that also.”
“That deadline is too early. The president is to make an important statement after zhamata sitting.”
“The president cannot give the statement earlier?”
Damn. “There are communication problems.”
Her eyebrows rose.
My argument was weak and I knew it. Hell, communication problems would well alert her to where the real difficulty was: that Danziger wasn’t talking to me. That I was failing in my job, that my network had broken down.
“I’m asking that my appearance in zhamata be postponed to the following day until the president has made his statement.” The Asto delegation wouldn’t be happy with that, but they had said your authorities’ response at zhamata, which referred to my upcoming speech, but nothing about when that speech would be held.
“The Delegate can plead for this at the sitting. It is not for me alone to decide. I am not the aggrieved party.” That was an offended-I as well.
And that was the end of my hope. Shut up, Delegate, and talk your puny arse out of this. Ask before all the delegates in the very public zhamata meeting if Asto—the aggrieved party—would wait. I already knew their stance on the matter. Worse, Thayu sat next to me, listening to every word of my squirming. She had ties with Asto, she would probably report back to their delegation. Asto would draw the only right conclusion about my relationship with Danziger. Where the spider veins of imayu reached, they protected against conflict, but where there was a barrier . . .
A barrier that started and ended with me. And that was the root of the problem.
There was distrust between me and Danziger, between me and Nations of Earth. Not just now; it had always been this way, even back when Sirkonen first appointed me. I was appointed for a political reason: to shut up my father, to shut up Marius Sena, governor of Taurus, and other intelligent and well-spoken politicians of the New Colonist faction, who wanted a greater say in Nations of Earth policies.
When I returned to the apartment, the accounts assistant waited in the foyer.
My heart jumped—good or bad news?
I waited until Thayu had gone into the communication room and Evi and Telaris had shut the door before addressing the man. “Anything to report?” Let it be payment from Nations of Earth. Let the lack of communication be through technical problems. Although I no longer believed that.
The man cleared his throat and by then I knew that the news wasn’t good. “The staff needs to pay some grocery bills, Delegate. The staff are happy doing this, but there are not many funds in the general account. Maybe the Delegate has another account he wishes to use to pay the bills?”
Oh the innocence of him. “The account has enough to pay the bills?”
“It does.”
“Then pay them.”
The man nodded and scurried off. I went into the communication room.
I needed to do something, and quick. It was time to start playing tough with Danziger.
It was midday in Rotterdam and Melissa Hayworth was online, delighted to hear from me, she said. I imagined her crouched in a corner in some newsroom, reading her screen while all around her some other crisis was being played out.
Oh boy, did I have a story for her.
I’d like your help. I typed, knowing
that what I said here would be on Flash within five minutes. I stood at the edge of a cliff and was about to jump, a point beyond which there would be no way back. Then again, how much lower could my relationship with Nations of Earth sink? I am in a difficult situation. Nations of Earth haven’t paid any of the agreed stipend as yet.
Are you suggesting the president has abandoned you?
Sure as hell I was suggesting that. I would appreciate if you would not put words into my mouth. I am saying only that Nations of Earth is late paying their agreed contribution. I’m giving an address to the assembly, and need information from Danziger. No one is getting back to me about either issue. I’m contacting you as a last resort.
So you want me to publish this?
Another deep breath. Knowing I was about to jump off an even higher cliff. Yes. If I can have a share of your payment. It hurt me to say that. In normal life, I found the selling of news stories morally repugnant, something Flash Newspoint did. Stories circulated about how people wilfully put themselves through newsworthy weird events so that they could sell their experiences. In one word: revolting. But hey, I happened to be talking to Flash Newspoint’s highest-profile journalist, and I’d run out of options.
If I did nothing, I’d live in a palace and starve. If I did nothing, the Asto military would attack and I’d never see my family again—or get married.
Melissa came back to me after a short pause. I will have to negotiate with the boss. Did I detect a slight hesitation? Time to pull out all the stops.
Ms Hayworth, when this comes out, it will be anchor page news. I want it there. I know you are skilled enough to get it there. I need to continue this job so I can try to preserve the peace. I’m holding off a squadron of Asto fighters who are keen to free their kinsmen and retaliate for whatever has been done to them. You of all people should understand. Her Coldi stepfather would be under pressure, too. All the signs were that she had a good relationship with him.
Another pause, and then she replied, Yes. I agree. I will get this onto the anchor page.
Thank you. I have some other things. At the Exchange in Athens, find a four-year-old boy called Azisha Omi.
Any reason?
Ask him what happened to him. It will make a good story. Flash loved those kinds of stories. And I hoped it would get the boy looked after.
Also, the credits for the movie on Kershaw mention a name, Amoro Renkati. Do you have any idea who this is?
A few minutes went by without reply. I glanced at Devin, who sat in the corner making sure everything was recorded, oblivious to the meaning of it. “Have we lost connection?”
“No.”
I typed, Melissa?
Hang on. I’ve got the movie. I am watching the credits right now. Where is this name?
Right at the end.
Another period of no reply.
I see it. No. I have no idea who this is.
Can you try to find out as much as you can about this person?
Any reason?
It will be newsworthy, and if it works out, you can sell the story.
Ha, ha. Funny. OK, boss. I’m onto it.
When she signed off, I balled my fist at the ceiling. Yes, yes!
Within an hour or so, headlines at Flash would scream foul at Nations of Earth. Other news networks would follow. Danziger: one, Cory Wilson: one.
When I turned to the door, I found Thayu standing there, her eyes wide. “You just broke loyalty to your superior?” Her voice resounded with horror.
I shivered, thinking that this was something Coldi would never do. “We don’t have those ties.”
“No wonder you have so many wars.” After casting me a look, not a friendly one, she stalked out of the room.
Meanwhile, I needed to get serious about my speech. The apartment had no office, apart from the one downstairs, but I wanted some peace and quiet. I made a little work area in the sitting room by dragging a table to the window overlooking the greenery. I placed photos of Eva on the desk and asked for a sheet of the smooth, plastic-like material that shops used for posting prices. It could be wiped clean and reused. The request puzzled the office staff, but I had enough of looking at screens and projections. In that perpetually dark hub room, one could forget that there was a beautiful tropical world out there.
So for the next two days, I sat at my little desk and doodled diagrams and flow charts for my new speech.
The staff worked downstairs and Thayu in the hub. She only came to speak to me when she had a question; and when she did, she reverted back to using formal pronouns. For the time being, that suited me fine. She could do administrative stuff, but for the rest, there was no way she could replace Nicha.
A girl from the office came to see me. In translating Delia’s documents, the translator had thrown up some interesting sentences. Some of the type I had seen before when translating Isla to Coldi, others more inventive, probably because some of the language in the documents was fairly archaic.
What, for example, was an adult school? And yes, with “adult” meaning just what it did in “adult shops” and “adult movies”.
It took me a while before I realised that they meant university. Coldi reached legal adulthood when they were seventeen, so the translation had morphed from “an educational institute where students are older than eighteen.” Ah. On Earth, Coldi used the word “training” for this, having stolen the Isla tendency to use verb forms as nouns. The evolution of language in action. Gamra retained old-fashioned forms of Coldi, which Asto had long since abandoned, while the Coldi on Earth were developing their own dialect. Mechanical translators had trouble keeping up with all this.
Interesting, if confusing.
Melissa Hayworth wrote that she was trying to negotiate the best deal for her article—I guessed that getting it on the anchor page proved a little harder than she thought. In my experience, news services were not so keen to publish material that highlighted major wrongs performed by governments for the fear of losing access to government information channels. She had so far drawn blanks on Amoro Renkati. The Italian studio which had produced the movie had been bought by a larger international crowd, and they—typically—didn’t know anything.
Eirani came to tell me that my jacket—and something that the laundry had found in the pocket—were on their way back. Laundry, she said, was done in the city. I didn’t understand why, when it took no more than ten minutes on the train, my laundry should take days to return, but such were the ways of Barresh. I had other things to worry about.
On the evening before the speech, Thayu beckoned me into the communication hub.
Projected in the air hung an article with a picture of me. The Flash Newspoint anchor page. The headline read, Is this the way we thank dedicated professionals?
. . . Mr Wilson has been left marooned in Barresh, with his funds cut off and his assistant jailed for no apparent reason. Repeated attempts to contact the justice department were met with silence. “We cannot say why the man is in custody.” This leads to questions whether the police know anything at all, and whether Nicha Palayi is held as scapegoat. Beyond the initial witness reports, the Special Services Branch appears to be totally in the dark about who attacked the president. If no charge can be brought against Nicha Palayi, then he should be released.
A spot of satisfaction glowed while I read. Melissa had copied everything I said, diverging only by the use of more dramatic words.
In the comments section, I found that messages of support ran about even with racist comments.
He has worked hard for it, one commenter said, We need to support Mr Wilson wherever we can. The Union is not going to go away, and arguments will only hurt us in the long run. Let us have the facts on the table.
Strange how it often took one such show of support to feel vindicated.
The accountant came to report that a payment had come in from Earth, too. It wasn’t a huge amount—it came from Melissa Hayworth—but it was better than nothing, and I felt much bett
er. I authorised the staff to pay another bill, for cleaning and clothing.
Danziger: one, Cory Wilson: two.
Even with that bit of good news, the night before the zhamata meeting had me lying awake, staring at the vaulted ceiling of the bedroom, repeating sentences of my speech, hoping that what I said would persuade Asto to extend the ultimatum.
I begrudged people like Nicha, who could turn off their brains and sleep almost anywhere at any time. I wondered if Thayu, in the next room, slept just as well, and then I wondered how she slept—curled up with her knees drawn up to her chest like Inaru, or flat on her stomach like Nicha. I could almost see the golden morning light as it used to shine on Inaru’s shoulders, and how she would turn and look at me as if she had a built-in sensor knowing that I was watching her. Inaru wasn’t gamra staff, so we never had feeders, but we didn’t need them. In the flat we rented above a restaurant in downtown Piraeus, we had a little breakfast table we would drag out onto the balcony. I would make manazhu in a coffee percolator—she’d almost died laughing the first time I did that—and the restaurant owner would bring us hot rolls. We would discuss politics, serious stuff. We would mine the depths of every political movement, place ourselves in the shoes of every bigot and terrorist on Earth or off it to attempt to understand what motivated them. We would—
I took a deep, ragged breath, dragged my sheet across my face to dry my cheeks.
It was over, damn it. I’d clawed back from that precipice; I was putting my life back together.
Damn it.
I rolled off the bed, padded to the window and peeked between the curtain and the wall. The marshlands bathed in the golden light of Ceren’s two small moons.
What should I do? Try to go back to sleep?
Zhamata sat at dawn. Gamra schedules ran to standardised gamra time, a day of about twenty-three and a half hours, agreed after long discussions between member entities. The Exchange needed a standard time to operate, but no single entity wanted to give up its time, or be forced to accept another’s. So in addition to my trouble in adapting to Barresh’s twenty-eight hour days, I needed to accommodate for gamra days. And people called Nations of Earth bureaucratic.
Rogue Stars Page 175