Playing God

by Sarah Zettel

  “Who's he?” Keale asked as Ryan froze the scene.

  “Arron Hagopian,” said Ryan. “He's a cultural xenologist. He's been living with the Getesaph for the past ten years. He's also a friend of Lynn Nussbaumer's.” Keale made a hurry-up gesture with two fingers. “She's only met with him once officially since we got here, but we thought he might know something, so we went looking for him, and didn't find him.”

  Keale rubbed his forehead and waited for Ryan to continue.

  “We were already pulling Lynn's threads from the system log, so we yanked his as well. After the departure session you see here.” Ryan nodded toward the frozen video image. “Hagopian threaded a request through his room terminal for the passenger manifest for the first outbound Getesaph shuttle. Then he found out where Dr. Nussbaumer was…”

  “Where was she?”

  “In a meeting with the prep-wave leaders; Dayisen Rual Lareet and Dayisen Rual Umat and their immediate support staff.” Ryan's lips moved, and the screen showed a port corridor. A small cluster of Dedelphi were leaving a conference room. Through the open door, Keale saw Lynn Nussbaumer and two Getesaph. Arron Hagopian strode into the camera's line of sight and stopped in front of the door. Nussbaumer said something the camera didn't catch and Arron walked into the room. The door shut.

  “There's a thread reeled out from the comm station for a Hrashn Kvin and a Hrashn Lun. After that, we have tape of two more Getesaph going into the room. All four Getesaph leave fifteen minutes later, without Nussbaumer or Hagopian.”

  Keale touched a key on the table and ran the view back until Arron Hagopian was shown in the corridor. He stared hard at the image. Hagopian looked tall, thin, and heavily suntanned, but outwardly, there was nothing remarkable about him. “Where are the Dayisen Rual now?”

  “Onboard the Ur.” Ryan blanked out the video. “We talked to them. They both say Arron and Lynn left the meeting together and they have no idea where they went afterward.”

  “Of course not.” Keale drummed his fingers on his chair arm. “Did you ask them who the other two Getesaph are?”

  “We did,” Ryan nodded. “They said they don't know them.”

  Keale frowned. “And you can't find them either?”

  For the first time, Ryan looked truly uncomfortable. “No, sir. They registered for dorm rooms, but they weren't on the shuttles and they're not in the port.”

  What is going on? And who started it? Keale looked up at the screen and Hagopian's frozen figure again. “Did Hagopian do anything to the passenger manifest? Perform a search on a name or anything like that?”

  Ryan shook his head “No. Nothing. From what I can tell, he just read it.”

  “Hagopian is the one who's been knotting the screeds against Bioverse, isn't he? Against the relocation?”

  “Yes, he is.” Ryan watched his chief carefully. “But he must have come to terms with it. He's been registered to stay on the Ur. He was supposed to go up with the prep wave. Apparently they're using him as some kind of official historian.”

  “But he's not there?”

  “No.” Ryan shook his head.

  Of course not, Keale frowned. Been here ten years. Speaks out against the relocation, but is supposed to go with it. So he disappears before the shuttles leave… This does not make sense. Either Hagopian is playing games with his friends, or the Dayisen Rual are playing games with theirs.

  Keale pursed his lips. The disappearance of the Shin t'Theria could be a simple matter of the Getesaph having caught themselves a couple of spies. On the other hand, they were friends of Nussbaumer's…

  “I want every pixel of security recordings from the port gone over. I want a complete history of Hagopian's movements and the Shin t'Theria's as well as Nussbaumer's.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ryan unhooked himself from the desk.

  “I also want transcripts of any messages the Shin t'Theria sent or received, and I want those two vanishing hrashn found if you have to search the island by the centimeter.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ryan's lips moved as he relayed the orders to his implants.

  “And send somebody out to start quizzing the Dayisen Rual who are still on the ground about Xenologist Hagopian. I want everything we can get about him knotted up and in my station, ay-sap.”

  This time, Ryan hesitated. “You don't think, I mean, sir, he's a Human and…”

  Keale shook his head. “Ryan, Humans have done far worse for causes they believed in. That's one of the reasons we have a job.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ryan pulled himself together and made his exit.

  When the door slid shut, Keale turned to the comm station. He worked the keys and sent out a thread of his own. It untied a simple task-knot and set it running. The knot was absolutely, positively not supposed to exist, and if anyone caught Keale using it, he would be stripped and fired before he could draw breath.

  Until then, it would funnel off the transmission of the Confederation meeting into his private database.

  He hesitated a moment and touched a few more keys. The wall screen shifted scenes again and played the download of the welcoming ceremony Esmo had dumped for him.

  Through her eyes, Keale watched thousands of pink-and-grey Getesaph spill out of the airlocks and into the city, along with eight or ten Humans, one of whom was Dr. David Zelotes, Lynn Nussbaumer's partner.

  Note to self. Get hold of Esmo and make sure somebody's told Zelotes what's happened.

  The Getesaph stood on the grass, gaping at the clean, bright, artificial world around them. Esmo delivered up a very canned speech of welcome, along with short announcements about times for drills with the rescue balls and other emergency equipment, and medical appointments down in the hospital. Then she stood back, telling them the city was theirs.

  Slowly, in groups that were probably family-detemined, the Getesaph wandered across the park with their Human attendants, chattering excitedly and turning their ears every-which-way. Keale scanned them. None of them looked like the missing hrashn, but he'd have the station look again.

  Keale shut the image off. He leaned his elbows on the comm station, laced his fingers together, and tried to think if there was anything he'd missed. He felt suspended, kept in place by two potential crises pressing in on him.

  Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe the trouble's coming on the ground now, and not later on the Ur. It's certainly acting like it….

  Except all the trouble's happening just as the relocation's starting… Hagopian's been here a long time, what's he been up to and with whom?

  He lifted his elbows off the station and sent out another thread. This one reeled in the passenger manifest for the shuttle Sojourn. He read the lists of names and titles.

  “All right, Hagopian. What did you see that I don't?”

  Vaier Byu stood in le the Audience Room with her sister queens, their attendants and assistants, half the Council of True Blood, and their attendants and assistants. Everyone's attention focused on the video wall the Humans had installed. Through it, they saw the table used for the Confederation treaty signing, still on its stage in the now-empty theater that had been built on a neutral island. It was neutral because it had been scoured of life in some unnumbered war, but no one remarked on that.

  Around the table, the other members of the Confederation sat or stood, framed by their own transmission walls as if they all waited in glassed-over thresholds.

  The Humans who designed this format for Confederation meetings had said it would provide reminders of the neutral space, while allowing everyone to communicate without the overwhelming strangeness of the simulation rigs, or the lengthy travel that was required to reach the tiny, barren stretch of ground.

  It does all that well enough. Vaier surveyed the windows to the other halls. But it makes us all look caged in. I wonder if the Humans did that on purpose?

  The final transmission window flashed open and the two Queens of the Paeccs Tayn appeared in their own little threshold. Gold-and-silver ornaments dangled from their ea
rs, indicating their people were at peace. When they declared war, the ornaments changed to black and red.

  “We thank the members of the Confederation for responding to our request for a meeting,” Aires said in her smooth, precise voice. Her discerning gaze swept across the gathering. “We have a complaint to raise that cannot wait.”

  “The Getesaph hold two of our citizens,” boomed Ueani before anyone else could speak. “They must be returned immediately.”

  First the fine knife, then the fine club. Vaier held her ears still. Where is my anger? The Getesaph have violated our people yet again. Where is my roaring blood? The Burn?

  Maybe it is damped by the crowds in the streets.

  The city had not been so crowded since before the plague. Just when it seemed she and her sisters were turning the tide on the rebellious Council, the news came out about the disappearance of Senejess and Resaime Shin t'Theria. Now the Council's supporters were in the streets beside the Queens’ petitioners. Speeches were read through loudspeakers. Honor brawls raged. The militia had been sent in to stop the worst of them, but they did not seem determined to do their jobs. Long poems and essays covered the debate walls and the walls surrounding the palace.

  Aires, in her usual, methodical way, had read a whole stack of hastily printed pamphlets and sighed. “Sisters, we underestimated the remaining strength of our opposition.”

  Rchilthen Ishth, the oldest of the Getesaph's Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead, raised one of her gnarled hands and touched the fold over her right eye with one knuckle. A gesture of apology, Vaier knew. She found herself wondering if it was to herself and her sisters, or to the Getesaph deities.

  “The Humans informed us of the loss of your citizens, as well as the loss of two of their own people.” Rchilthen Ishth lowered her hand and tucked it under a fold in her golden jacket. “We do not ask what your citizens were doing in our country.”

  “Very good,” murmured Aires. “Not surprising, but well delivered.”

  “We have instituted a close and careful search for the… your mother and daughter,” Rchilthen Ishth went on. “It has uncovered some distressing facts.”

  “Where are you going with this?” breathed Aires as she leaned her ears a little closer to the screen. Ueani's fist clenched behind her back.

  Rchilthen Byvant, whose left ear lay permanently limp against her scalp, touched her sister's shoulder. “We have discovered that some members of our Parliament have conspired to undermine the Confederation. We are still learning the extent of their influence.” Her wounded ear trembled. “I fear many of them are of the Defenders’ House. We believe that your mother and daughter learned of the rebellion's existence and the Defenders took action against them.”

  Ueani opened her mouth, but Vaier touched her arm. This was not the time for her. This required Aires.

  Never slow to fill a conversational gap, Aires leaned forward. “This is indeed most distressing.” Her voice dripped sincerity. “Why did you not call the Confederation as soon as you learned about it?”

  Rchilthen Ishth's jacket wrinkled as her hidden hands clutched its fabric. “Because we hoped we could find and return them to you before this.”

  “Isn't this just magnificently convenient!” exploded Ueani. “Two of our people vanished, probably murdered, and instead of admitting what you've done, you blame a just-discovered conspiracy. Ancestors Mine! What cowards!”

  Slowly, Rchilthen Byvant stood up from her chair. Her good ear dropped dangerously close to her scalp. “You send a mother and daughter to spy on us, demand to know what became of them, and then spit insults at us. Tell me why we should even speak to you!”

  “Stop it!” screamed a strange voice.

  Vaier's gaze jerked right. One of the Paeccs Tayn, Oran ji Ufa, had thrown herself up against the screen. She leaned there, hands pressed flat against the glass. Her teeth gleamed in the artificial light. “Stop it all of you or I swear I'll have the guts out of you!”

  No one spoke, not even Aires.

  Oran pulled back a little, panting hard. Her sister stood staunchly beside her, not even attempting to interfere. “I don't care if you idiots want to fight your fights until the sun goes out. I don't care if you kid the last of your babies and sing over their dead bodies. But the plague is claiming more of my family every day. If you break this Confederation… If you lose us the Humans’ work, I swear by blood, soul, and will, I and mine will cut the life out of you and yours!”

  “You will not be alone.” The First President of the Hamareil stepped forward.

  No one else spoke either in challenge or agreement, but Vaier saw too many stolid faces in the thresholds. Vaier looked across the empty table straight into Rchilthen Ishth's eyes. For half a heartbeat, she saw the fear in the Getesaph's soul and understood it. The Getesaph did not want to die, but she would deliver herself to death, just like Vaier would.

  Vaier spoke in slow, measured tones. “Will you let the Humans search unimpeded for our mother and daughter?”

  “What could we hide from the Humans?” The folds of Rchilthen Ishth's old face sagged even farther. Ancestors Mine, she must be less than a year from the Change. “We will report to the Confederation everything we learn, and we will request that the Human security chief do the same.” She leaned forward. “In return, we expect a full disclosure to the Confederation of who this mother and daughter are and what they were doing here.”

  Ueani almost shouted again, but this time Aires held her back. “They were not sent under our authority, but we will find out who they really are and report to the Confederation tomorrow.”

  “So.” Satisfaction rang quietly in Rchilthen Byvant's voice. “We must believe you know nothing of your traitors’ actions while you believe we must know everything of ours.”

  “Tomorrow we will know what must be done,” Vaier said softly, hoping the translator carried across every nuance of warning.

  “Tomorrow, then,” replied Rchilthen Byvant. “If the Confederation agrees with us, of course.”

  “If you act as you speak, it is reasonable enough,” said the First President. “I suggest we confer again at this time tomorrow to see if you will.”

  At that, Vaier finally felt the old heat in her blood. How dare the Getesaph pour such suspicion into the waters. How dare…

  She controlled herself. Aires was watching her, and Vaier knew what she was thinking. It would not do to have the Confederation see her have to be restrained by her lesser-named sisters.

  “We agree to this,” said Vaier.

  One by one, the other Confederation members also agreed, and one by one the windows closed. Ueani, who was standing closest to the control unit, smacked the button that shut the power off and turned around.

  “Sisters,” she said between harsh, panting breaths, “I believe we need to confer with ourselves alone.”

  “I believe you are correct,” said Aires levelly.

  Their royal retinue, wed trained in their jobs, gathered up their papers and pens and retreated, but the representatives of the Council just stirred uneasily.

  One, Feia Ros t'Theria, lifted both hands and closed her eyes. “If my Majestic Sisters will consider debating with the Council for a while. This is—”

  “This is what?” demanded Ueani. “This is how we came to be holed up in our home with our people beating on the gates?” Vaier glanced at Aires, who made a small gesture. Let her go. She needs to shout.

  “Or maybe,” Ueani roared, “this is how we came to be so isolated from our people that we didn't even know what danger we were in? Is that what you mean, Wise Sister? Is this what you and our other Wise Sisters in Council failed to warn us about?”

  “Majestic Sister.” Feia Ros's voice shook. “I—”

  “You what!” Ueani was almost on top of her. Vaier tapped her foot lightly to get the Ancestors’ attention. Please don't let my sister lay hands on a Councilor. We do not need to give such news to our enemies. “You what? You apologize? Or maybe you agree with our en
emies out there, and you wish to tell us so!” Ueani's hands came up. Vaier's skin tightened, but her sister only closed her fists on the air. “Get out of our hearing! All of you!”

  The Wise Sisters were not fools and left in a crowd, with fluttering robes and cringing ears. Silence filled the audience chamber, broken only by the sound of Ueani's ragged panting.

  “Are you calmed down yet, Ueani?” asked Aires mildly.

  Ueani's ears eased themselves away from her scalp. “Nearly.”

  “Good.” Aires touched Ueani's forearm, then turned away to sit on the nearest sofa. If she felt even half as tired as Vaier did, she didn't show it. She sat straight and calm, as always. “So, say what you need to.”

  Ueani crossed the floor to her and stroked Aires's ear absently for a moment before she turned away. “I want to know how much we're ready to give away to the Getesaph.”

  Vaier's ears dropped involuntarily. “We will do no more than we said.”

  “What we said was a lot. We are talking about naming spies to them, ours, our enemies’, it doesn't matter. Do you believe”—the skin on her face rippled—“the Getesaph will really give them back once we say they are spies? Do you think they'll survive to come home?

  “And what do we do about our subjects outside?” Ueani gestured toward the outer wall. “When word gets out about what we've agreed, they'll go insane. Do we force the militia to put down their sisters until they turn on us? We are trapped.”

  “Not yet.” Aires's ears stood straight up. “We can begin a muster of troops. We can announce our plans to put down this treachery of the Getesaph's. But we will go too slowly. We will give the Humans time to find out what is really going on. It might be as Rchilthen Byvant says: The Getesaph Parliament housed a conspiracy. They'd eat the children crawling from their sisters’ wombs, why would they hesitate to conspire against their government?” She waved her hand dismissively. “But the Humans’ words will be heard where the Getesaph's won't, both inside the Confederation and outside these walls.”

  Vaier rubbed her hands together and sat beside Aires, drinking in warmth and strength from her proximity. “That might work. But who will lead the muster? At this moment I'm not sure who in the army we can trust.”