by Mark Henwick
Is this how it will be, when it’s my turn? he thinks. Shaken awake in the middle of the night. The Ministro of the Bureau of Security waiting for him. What sort of thing would she say? The movement is disappointed in you, Sánchez. You’ve lost your enthusiasm. We need to ask you some questions to find out why. To make sure, you understand...
But Ministro Berges does not say any of that when he enters his study.
She’s seated on one of the comfortable chairs to the side, and his staff has already provided her with fresh coffee.
“Ministro,” she greets him. “My apologies for the hour.”
Her face is empty of any sign of regret whatsoever, but he has to respond.
“Emergencies know no hours,” he replies glibly, sitting opposite her and pouring himself some of his own coffee.
“Indeed.” She puts her cup down, pleasantries over. “News from the Sierra Arija.”
Sánchez feels his stomach clench again. There is no good news that can come from that place.
“They got a seeker up to the escape pod we found near Berriaren,” she says. “The analysis of traces confirms the fugitive criminal Aguirre was in that pod, along with an unknown woman.”
Sánchez does not point out that Aguirre has not been tried yet. Fugitive she may be, but his courts have not declared her a criminal. It’s useless to speak about it. Berges has always referred to her this way.
“But why?” he says. “What in the nova was she doing up there?” He runs a hand over his disheveled hair. “Maybe it was just an accident. Escape pods aren’t really controllable.”
“Civilian ones aren’t. This one had control capability.”
Sánchez purses his lips and frowns; a military escape pod on a Xian courier. Interesting, but not as important as Aguirre herself. “Still, if she’d come down with Delegate Hwa, she’d be in Iruña now, and we’d be faced with difficult decisions.”
“I don’t agree. If she were here, we’d have her.”
“Taha believes she will claim diplomatic immunity from arrest.”
“I didn’t say I’d arrest her.”
Sánchez swallows. “You have seen the visual evidence, haven’t you, Ministro? Zarate Aguirre and Delegate Hwa? For all that she’s also a citizen of Newyan, it’s worrying that we might be considering... extrajudicial actions against a citizen of an Inner World planet like Kernow, a duchess no less, even without adding the enormous complication of a close family connection to a major Xian trading company.”
Berges is silent for a long time, glittery eyes watching him like a snake. “You really believe she’s related to the Fortunate Stars Hong family?”
He shrugs. “I can’t prove anything, but it would represent a huge risk. We cannot survive without Xian trade, and Fortunate Stars is hugely influential. Killing Aguirre might—”
“How can she be related?”
“Her father.” Sánchez pours himself more coffee, though it will not do his stomach or nerves any good. “He was known to have such predilections. An affair with a Xian visitor?” He shrugs again. “Not unlikely.”
Berges’ lips thin.
“Which would mean that it was all planned, from the beginning. That the Xian Hegemony is operating against us, and the Aguirre family were their agents all along. How else could she have so conveniently escaped on the Shohwa?”
Sweat beads Sánchez’s forehead. How has she leaped to that conclusion? Does this woman believe what she’s saying? Or is this a trap for him? A ‘suggestion’ on the line he must take when speaking to others?
It’s not so much a matter of whether Berges is mad or not, but what direction her madness is heading at any one time. The wrong word from him and he might find himself answering questions in the basement of the Bureau of Security tonight.
He suppresses a shudder. “Aguirre went through the standard emigration process and her submission to the broking site that secured passage on the Shohwa was fixed at the point she was cleared. I cannot see how that could have been forecast in advance or arranged.”
“Neither can the Bureau,” Berges admits. “Yet. We are still questioning the emigration officer and the technical staff of the broking site. We’ll find out. We always do.”
A drop of sweat trickles down the side of Sánchez’s face.
“The whole project of handling the Aguirre family was not well managed,” Berges says.
“The movement’s committees made decisions on available information and—”
“So it’s my Bureau’s fault?” Berges cuts across him. “My Bureau’s information was insufficient?”
In truth, it evidently was both insufficient and not timely, but he cannot say that.
“It’s no specific person’s or department’s fault, Ministro Berges. None of us can be perfect, but in making mistakes, we learn for the future.”
If we’re allowed to survive.
She doesn’t reply. For an unending minute she just watches him, until he has to break the silence.
“Regardless of those considerations, Ministro,” he says, “the single fact that we have identified—that Aguirre arrived in the Sierra Arija in an escape pod from the Xing Gerchu—doesn’t seem to be reason enough to bring you here in the small hours. What else do you have for me?”
Her lips thin again.
“Clever, Ministro Sánchez, but you’re not thinking clearly yet.”
“How so?”
“Why did she choose to come down near Berriaren?”
Sánchez frowns. Berges has a point. No one in their right mind goes walking through the Sierra Arija without a reason. Aguirre needs to be in Iruña, not running away from Hartzak in the mountains.
“The rebels?” Details are sketchy, but he knows there was a band of them in the mountains. Not very close to Berriaren, but closer than Iruña.
“Defeated by the Syndacians,” she replies briefly. “Not a consideration anymore as a group.”
“As a group?” Sánchez pauses, his lawyer’s senses feeling something missing. “What about individuals?”
“You have it, Ministro. The Syndacians have been hunting an individual. They would have caught her, too, but for the appearance of Aguirre in Berriaren.”
“Who? Who could be so important?”
“An Aguirre cousin. Kattalin Espe Aguirre.”
Sánchez searches his memory. “She died. A house fire. There was an explosion. The whole family...”
“Not the whole family. She’d been sent secretly to Valdivia. A close friend of the family claimed that it was not widely known because her parents were ashamed of her behavior. Lies, of course. It was all some part of their plan for rebellion.”
Sánchez puts his head in his hands. Berges gives every indication of believing this, but he must concentrate on what it means for the movement. “So she didn’t die,” he says, “and now there are two Aguirres. But it’s actually our advantage because we have troops in the sierras and we have seekers, so we’re tracking them. Two women on the run. Surely it’s just a matter of time.”
“No!”
Her sharp retort brings his head back up.
“We lost the trace. And you’re not thinking it through, Ministro.”
He blinks.
“Think, man! How did Zarate Aguirre know her cousin was going to be in Berriaren?”
He spreads his hands. “Some radio communication?”
“There were no communications from the sierras. No transmissions at all to the Xing Gerchu which we didn’t know about. There were many broadcasts from Iruña, which the ship would have been able to pick up and some of which must have been in code.”
Sánchez can almost see the blinding cloud of paranoia around her, but he has to go along with the theory: “Who knew, to tell Aguirre that her cousin was there? Even I didn’t know.”
“Exactly why I am here without anyone else present, talking to you.” She pins him with her basilisk stare. “We have a traitor at the highest levels in the movement.”
His jaw mov
es soundlessly before he manages to speak. The person responsible for controlling the Syndacians must have known about Kattalin Aguirre.
“Carmen?” His tone betrays his thoughts. He knows she is not a traitor. Carmen Goya, the Ministro of the Bureau of Defense, is dedicated to the movement, heart and soul. More than he is, if anything.
But Berges can only see that as the person responsible for managing the situation up in the sierras, she alone among the second circle of the movement knew who the Syndacians were tracking.
It’s a huge leap to thinking she would betray the movement and communicate that to Zarate Aguirre. Why would she?
Berges does not care.
“As of tonight,” she says, “you are temporarily Ministro of Defense as well as Justice. The situation in the sierras is under your control. The threat to the movement posed by the Aguirres must be eliminated. Use roadblocks and overflight of trails and tracks. House to house searches in places like Cabezón. Village to village in the mountains. Use the Syndacians if you don’t have enough police or Rangers.”
“We agreed the appearance of Syndacians in any town was to be discouraged, in case...” Sánchez feels the sweat running again. “In case it lends weight to rebel propaganda.”
“If they cause unrest, then use them to suppress it. Fewer mouths to feed, after all.” Berges gets up. “We cannot afford to fail. And to be completely clear, Ministro, there is to be no trial of any Aguirre family member, or anyone who harbors them. The Bureau for Security requires that they are all executed on the spot. We will deny it, and if eventually forced to admit it, we will present it to outsiders as a regrettable accident and deal with any resulting problems if and when they arise.”
Chapter 43
Bleyd
Newyan Skyhook
The man in front of him is the new chairman of the new oversight committee for the new parliament of all Kernow. Bleyd has forgotten his name. The intense weeks of formulation and political negotiation have blurred faces and responsibilities together. He’s constructed the outline of a new constitution and political framework for the planet, from scratch, in a month.
Smythe? Yes, that’s his name.
“You can’t do this, sir,” Smythe says.
Bleyd looks over his shoulder at the Skyhook ground terminal, looks back. The scar on his cheek moves a little, but he’s not smiling.
“It appears I am,” he says.
This refers to five hundred members of the Welarvor Mounted Police, currently being loaded, twenty-five at a time, into shuttles that will ascend the Bason city Skyhook. Once they’re at the top, their shuttles will make the short trip to the loading bay of a passenger ship called Yenobia, formerly registered to the planet Aurelius, but captured while in the service of the Hajnal during their attack on Kernow. The Yenobia is now claimed by Xian and on that ship Bleyd’s troops will join three thousand Xian marines. They will be responsible for delivering a quarter-million tons of relief supplies to the people in cities on Newyan. Regardless of what anyone in Iruña says.
“But the parliament... due process...” Smythe stutters to a halt, and tries a stronger line: “We need the Prime Minister here on Kernow at this delicate time.”
Bleyd’s mouth stretches. There is no humor in his expression. If Smythe were a more imaginative man, he might recall that Duke Aguirre-Tremayne’s coat of arms is a wolf, and that his name, Bleyd, is old Cornish for wolf.
“Then you have a choice, Chairman Smythe, but I do not.” Bleyd pauses, visibly calms himself. He can’t remember when he last slept. He’s aware that he’s been run ragged over the last weeks and he’s not at his best. His temper is on a hair-trigger. He mustn’t take it out on Smythe, who is attempting the exact task that Bleyd designed for him.
“I don’t understand,” Smythe says, and Bleyd advances his opinion of the man one degree. A man who will admit that is worth something.
“I’ll be departing with the convoy to Newyan as soon as we’re all loaded. I will not insult the office of Prime Minister by saying that it means nothing to me. In fact, it means a great deal. However, I did not request the office. I did not put my name forward, and I have urgent family business which I will be attending to.”
“Your wife, of course, but how can you...”
Smythe realizes there is no way to say what he intended, and stops.
“How can I value my wife above my honor and duty? You ask the most pertinent question, Chairman.” Bleyd’s eyes stare beyond the room they stand in and cloud with memory. “I failed my first wife, whatever anyone else says. I should have seen the warning signs, been there somehow, and protected her. I will not fail my second wife. And I’m already late in presenting my support.”
Smythe doesn’t try to challenge that, and Bleyd starts to believe he’ll do a good job in the new parliament.
“You have a decision to make with the committees and parliament, Chairman,” Bleyd continues after a moment’s pause. “Either I am the Prime Minister and Commander of the Armed Forces, those troops loading are Kernow’s contribution to the effort to defeat the Hajnal, and I am going with them to direct them personally. Or... I hold no office in the parliament, those troops are volunteers, but I am still going with them. I apologize for putting you and Kernow in this position, but as I said, I have no other options that I can accept.”
Smythe knows that the duke is the one person who can ensure that the parliament will actually work, and not dissolve into factional fights. He also understands that nothing he says will change the duke’s mind, and his best course of action is therefore to try and sell the idea to parliament. In that, he will have the support of Lord Marik Roscarrow and a surprising number of other members.
Beyond that, well, he can only hope the duke returns quickly.
He sends a silent prayer that the expedition will be successful, and then, being an ex-military man himself, comes to attention.
“I will convey your message to Parliament,” he says. “I wish you quick and complete success, sir.”
They’re not in uniform, so he shouldn’t salute. Instead, they shake hands and he leaves.
As the outer door closes behind Smythe, another opens.
The duke is staring at the loading operation and doesn’t turn to look at her. In truth, her appearance makes him immensely uneasy.
“Is this the right way?” he asks quietly.
“The right way? What is that? Our predictions of all the paths narrow to this one choke point, on Newyan. We believe this is the only way,” she replies, her echoing voice at once strangely familiar and utterly alien to him.
He suppresses a shiver.
A memory appears in his mind. Zara—filthy from rolling about in the courtyard after her expedition down to Stormhaven—entering his study, her head up, her eyes glittering, defiance in every quivering muscle of her body. With an absolute determination to do her duty as she saw it.
His wife. He remains amazed and humbled by that.
And the thought of the danger she’s in is like a lance piercing his side.
Another hour and we’ll be coming, my love, he whispers silently. Just hold on.
Chapter 44
Hwa
Hwa has left Raul asleep, exhausted, and she’s lying down in the server room.
The quantum soup, as she thinks of her brain, has already prepared connections and she slips effortlessly into union with the processors that surround her.
It’s like hurling herself into the nighttime ocean. She’s connected to every part of it, every molecule, aware of the whole and yet separate. It calls to her, all the time, this sense of the infinite, while her body calls her in the other direction, to the singular, to the sensation of a hermetic being.
Xing is here, too, in this ocean of thought.
She can feel him waiting, patient and polite. With her mind so thoroughly integrated, he could intrude on hers. Two entities sharing the same physical platform cannot remain forever isolated. Most Self-Actualized Entities use such an op
portunity to merge datasets.
Yet she hesitates, and he respects her wish for privacy.
“I am partly human,” she apologizes, speaking the words to emphasize them. “It is difficult for me.”
Is that the human side that is hesitant?
“Yes.”
Out of a sense of shame for being the same and yet so unlike him, Hwa lets a trickle of the human sensations she has been enjoying so much leak out into the formlessness that is Xing.
He chuckles. Thank you. But we should be serious. Something is happening in Iruña.
“The Hajnal?”
I suspect everything that every Ministro does to be somehow related to the Hajnal, he says.
“What’s happening?”
Carmen Goya has been taken to the Bureau of Security. From the comms activity, I deduce Ministro Sánchez is now in charge of their efforts to find Zara.
This follows the pattern of the data. First circle Hajnal protected, second level expendable.
“They eat themselves,” Hwa says.
Yes, but Sánchez is more a problem than Goya was. Sánchez is clever.
She agrees with his assessment. “Zara hasn’t been in communication for a while. We don’t know where she is at the moment. Unless you can deduce something from message traffic?”
No, nothing at the moment. We must wait and watch and be ready to act.
“I have a meeting with Ministro Sánchez and Subsecretario Yarritu of the Bureau of Food and Agriculture this morning. Sánchez wants Yarritu to be involved in the distribution of relief.”
I know. I predict Sánchez will not make it.
“What do you think of Yarritu? Another Hajnal functionary? Surely second level?”
I don’t know. You will need to tell him that Xian will not allow any local involvement with the distribution—it will go directly to the people.
“That’s going to be hard.”
I suspect Shohwa will lead the relief effort, and I doubt she will allow any ‘assistance’. We’re really just messengers for the relief operation.