by Tanya Huff
“For hairless mammals, you are not looking bad,” Presit allowed after a long, critical moment. “And I are happy to report you are both smelling quite pleasant.” A number of other species assumed Humans had no sense of smell. Presit knew better, but that didn’t stop her from expressing an opinion. Nothing stopped her, as far as Torin knew. She lowered the room’s one adjustable chair, sat, and said, “They are not wanting you here, but I are having insisted.”
Torin wanted to point out that she hadn’t wanted to be there either, but asked instead, “Who are they?”
Her they were not necessarily Presit’s they.
Presit waved it off. “Most are being politicians, some are being military. The reasons for not wanting you here are being the same reasons they are having for you being present while the data sheet are being tested. Politicians are not wanting you being involved because they are not being able to predict what you are going to be doing and the military are not wanting you being involved because you are no longer being military and are being no longer under their control.”
Craig snorted.
“Yes. Yes. You and I are knowing they are always having been delusional about that even if ex-Gunnery Sergeant Kerr are not agreeing.”
Torin didn’t agree, but she knew better than to argue military culture with those who hadn’t served. “If that’s the case, I can’t imagine being seen with us is going to do your future campaign any good.”
“Please, you are understanding nothing about influencing public opinion.” She combed claws enameled in green ombre through her whiskers, first right side, then left. “Desires of politicians and the military being put aside, I are curious why the scientists are not having the three of us interact with the plastic during the identification process. As far as we are knowing, only the three of us are carrying markers that are being placed by the plastic and we are already having proven the plastic are sometimes requiring the encouragement of numbers to be communicating.”
“And sometimes it doesn’t,” Craig pointed out.
“That are being no reason not to be making the attempt. Politicians and the military should be having no authority over science.”
“Not even science involving an ex-enemy of the Confederation?” Torin asked. “Parliament could limit experimentation for security reasons.”
“But Parliament hasn’t. I would be knowing if it had.” Presit’s ears flicked. “And I are curious as to why an avenue of investigation are having been closed.”
“And who closed it.” Torin sat on the side of the bed, reducing the angle between them.
Presit smiled, showing sharp, white teeth. “Yes, and who are having closed it.”
The marker the plastic had placed in their heads during their absorption by Big Yellow had turned out not to be a marker at all, but a piece of itself. Themselves. Several thousand pieces given the whole molecular polyhydroxide descriptor, but that wasn’t the point. They provided context, it had told them, for the war. Had the plastic not disappeared immediately after that statement, Torin would have enjoyed giving them a different kind of context—more personal than mass troop deployment, but as violent. Her therapist had suggested they should perhaps try diplomacy if the plastic returned. Torin had diplomatically suggested her therapist stuff a few pieces of plastic into his head before he opened his mouth again. She liked to believe she’d made progress on her anger issues since then.
“I are having been trying to get the three of us together in the presence of the data sheet for some time now,” Presit continued. “I are having no success, but I are unable to be determining why. The latter point are being the larger matter.”
“You’re good at determining why,” Torin admitted.
“I are. I are preferring our interacting with the data sheet to be happening in a more controlled environment, but I are taking what I can get. It are being strange to me that they are not having been exposing us to it first thing.”
“So they could cross the obvious off the list,” Craig agreed, dropping onto the bed beside Torin.
“Now, there are always being the chance you are having been asked and you are having refused . . .” her voice trailed off and she looked pointedly at Torin.
“Didn’t happen.”
“And even if you two are having touched it while you are transporting it—and I are not saying you did.” She raised both hands. “Even if, I are not being there, so there are still a variable out of play.”
“So why didn’t they get the three of us together?”
Torin could hear the frown in Craig’s voice. “My guess, they don’t want to be dependent on the Younger Races. Not in the current political climate. Not if they want funding.”
“Too damn many theys,” Craig muttered.
“Today, I are having an audience and you are definitely being Younger Races and we are going to be seen. By everyone.” She flicked her ears, and curled her lip. “This vote are having the potential to tear the Confederation apart, and there are those who are being blind to it. We cannot be going backward, we can only be going forward, and today, I are making that point from the podium.”
Craig leaned against Torin, hard enough she had to brace herself to keep from falling over. “I’d vote for her.”
Torin made a noncommittal sound, and said, “Did the H’san know about the skirmishes on the border?”
“I are still looking into that. Now, be asking me how the H’san feel about you being here.”
“How,” Craig began.
“Not you.” Presit cut him off. “I are wanting ex-Gunnery Sergeant Warden Kerr to ask.” When Torin remained silent and raised a brow, Presit rolled her eyes. “Fine. When I are arranging the invitations, it are being the H’san who are being most recalcitrant. They are not being obvious, but to anyone who are having a brain, they are clearly trying to delay a decision until it are being too late.”
“Torin makes the H’san uncomfortable.”
Torin lifted her lip off her upper teeth in an expression any Krai would recognize. “I’m good with that.” The H’san were the Eldest of the Elder Races. They sang to the dawn. They loved cheese. For most of the Confederation, that was enough. Most of the Confederation were unaware the H’san maintained a storage facility of ancient weapons hidden within a planet of their dead.
“I are just happy someone are agitating entrenched opinions,” Presit huffed. “I cannot be doing it all.”
Under Presit’s annoying outer layers was a highly intelligent, dangerously curious inner core. Torin reminded herself, not for the first time, to remember that.
“Because this are being a public unveiling and because you are having been instrumental in discovering the plastic, I are able to finally convince the right people you should be attending. Enough of the right people that the H’san are having to withdraw their ever so very discreet objections. So . . .” She stood and smoothed down her fur. “. . . it are being time to stop talking and to start doing.”
* * *
• • •
Presit had insisted they walk to the Parliament buildings. “We are being three among a multitude, all who are heading in the same direction.”
It wasn’t exactly a multitude, but all three Younger Races and more than a few Elder were represented in the crowd. Talking, laughing—most of them acted as though they were enjoying a pleasant break in their usual routine. As far as Torin could tell, no one seemed anxious about being exposed to an artifact left behind by a species who’d manipulated two galactic civilizations into war. Or possibly an artifact made up of a species who’d manipulated two galactic civilizations into war. With the artifact still apparently a data sheet almost a year after it had been found, Torin assumed the former. On the other hand, everything they knew about the plastic indicated it excelled at playing the long game, so she could be wrong.
As Presit nodded and waved to fans, she wond
ered if their visibility was intended to safeguard them against a sudden disappearance. Then she told herself even righteous paranoia had limits and Presit’s reasons for visibility were more likely to be ego driven.
The plaza in front of the Sector Parliament Building was about two-thirds full when they arrived. The sound of so many sentients gathered together hung over the crowd like smoke—what would be unbearable noise on a station, reduced to a dull background roar by the open air. Some had brought folding chairs, some sat on benches covered in patterned tile, some were in constant movement greeting friends. Presit circled wide, then adjusted trajectory toward the dais and bleachers set up outside the building’s large, double doors.
“Those doors brass?” Craig asked, raising a hand to shade his eyes. “Decent salvage.”
“That you are to be leaving right where they are being. The building are being called Tev Arack Sant, meaning The Nest Secure. The Niln are having named the planet, the Rakva are having named the Parliament building. The Katrien are having named the city, Urhayvan.”
“Sectional?” Craig translated. “For the Sector Parliament? Not exactly poets, the Katrien.”
Presit waved off the observation, claws glittering in the sunlight. “Not in Federate,” she agreed. “It are being a dull compromise of a language.”
A Katrien conversation sounded like a cat fight, neither dull nor compromising.
The pointing and whispering increased among Presit’s fans in the crowd, and Torin, who could see the potential for trouble, had to admire the way she walked the fine line between acknowledging the attention and encouraging it. With Presit in the spotlight, no one had spared a glance at the Wardens accompanying her.
Were there to be trouble, the planetary law enforcement officers would be little help. A pair stood in the shade on the far edge of the plaza directly opposite the dais, a pair struggled through packed bodies toward a shrieking child, and one stood to either side of the Parliamentary doors, additional trim on their uniforms identifying their positions as primarily ceremonial. Six. Six in case of trouble with . . . Torin broke the crowd into platoons and companies. With roughly twenty thousand civilians. Granted there could be additional PLE she hadn’t spotted, threaded through the crowd or stationed out of sight but . . . six? A cursory inspection of the site showed four positions up high with full coverage of the dais and most of the crowd, and another three with partial coverage. Did the PLE have control of all seven?
They should have brought Binti with them.
“Stop it.” Craig nudged her with an elbow.
Torin scanned the narrow open area in front of the dais for the faint shimmer of a security screen and didn’t find it. “Stop what?”
“Stop assuming the worst is going to happen and that the locals’ll be buggered if it does.”
Six PLE, twenty thousand civilians. “They will.”
“How often does the worst happen?”
“I could work it out.”
“Torin . . .”
“Humans First wants the data sheet.” Torin thought of the damage a pistol could do, and her hands twitched toward the KC-7 she wasn’t wearing. How many more pistols had Marteau printed since he’d been driven into hiding? How easily could he have seeded weapons throughout the crowd?
Realistically, not easily. Nuh Ner was the location of the Sector Parliament and, even after the war, the security protecting the representatives from each of the Planetary Parliaments in MidSector Seven was adequate by Torin’s standards. Both shuttle ports and elevator stations scanned everyone heading dirtside. Full, comprehensive scans right down to the identification of stomach and bowel contents. Unfortunately, those scans weren’t infallible; they’d missed the presence of the polyhydroxide alcoholydes for centuries.
“Do you honestly think Humans First is going to roar in here, shout we are number one, and roar off with the data sheet? No,” Craig answered his own question. “Too in your face for that lot, no matter how up themselves they are. Besides, if they do show up, well, we’re here.”
“My experience with crowd control involves weapons’ fire or a crowd predisposed to do what I tell them and, until recently, your idea of a crowd was me.”
“So leave crowd control to the locals, then. You and I, we’ll deal with Humans First.”
She stopped. “You and I?”
Craig took one more stride, then turned to face her. “You and I.”
“Unarmed?”
“Think you can’t take them? Because I’ve heard stories . . .” He smiled when she laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “That’s better. Get out of your own way, Torin. You can’t keep the assholes in Parliament from being assholes. You can’t keep certain groups of Humans from acting like entitled shites. You do what you do.”
With the amount of pink in the sky, the blue of his eyes looked purple. “We do what we do.”
“Here?” He waggled both brows and spread his hands. “Never pegged you for an exhibitionist, but I’m game.”
“I are going to be pretending you are both too tall for me to be hearing that,” Presit huffed. “Be keeping up. After what I are going through to be getting you here, I are not arriving without you.” She waited pointedly until they fell back in beside her, then continued leading them toward the dais.
The data sheet had been hung from a frame on the left of the dais, and the shimmer of a screen surrounding it reassured Torin that not everyone involved in securing the site was an idiot. At this distance, the orange-on-orange symbols scattered over the exposed side couldn’t be made out. Earlier, however, Presit had told them that after every time they changed, they returned to the first configuration they’d shown when they were found. The podium to the right of the data sheet broadcast a repeat of the documentary about the sheet’s discovery, cutting in scenes Dalan, Presit’s camera operator, had shot on Threxie, but primarily using footage taken by government teams who’d arrived after the high-caliber shooting had ended. Torin had always been in favor of noncombatants arriving after the shooting ended. It made her job easier. Not many of the crowd watched the thirty-by-forty–meter projection hanging over their heads, but most had probably seen it before.
Bleachers rose up six levels to the right of the dais. Inelegant but effective, they’d hold twenty to a row, averaging out the sizes of the attending species and allowing for the spreading asses of politicians and upper level brass. Presit had led them to within ten meters of the bleachers when the doors opened and they began to fill, the crowd containing all three Younger Races as well as Niln, Katrien, Rakva, Trun, Mictok, Dornagain, and a single H’san. Every Sector Parliament had at least one H’san as a voting member whether or not there were H’san-controlled planets in the sector. According to the H’san, the placement was used to teach their young responsibility. As they had one of the longest life spans in the Confederation and assumed the greatest responsibility for its continued prosperity, this Confederation-wide training of their young was not so much accepted as welcomed.
And no one questioned the H’san, Torin added silently as this particular H’san, not built for the kind of seat used by the bipedal and unable to fake it like the Mictok, squatted by the end of the bleachers nearest the data sheet, neck compressed, head resting on what served them for shoulders. Torin used to think the H’san presence was at worst paternal. These days, she thought they were at best paternal. She hadn’t yet set a new parameter for worst.
A Marine officer wearing a fair bit of brass on his black Class A’s glared from the top tier.
“I see General Morris are having spotted you.” Presit waved at a Katrien who’d shrieked . . . something. Given Presit’s reaction, Torin assumed it was complimentary. “He are having personal opinions on your being present.”
“I’ll bet he is.”
General Morris had sent Torin to Silsviss on a diplomatic mission, fully aware it would end in dead Marines
. General Morris had tapped her for the trip to Big Yellow and then tried to use her experience as a boost to his career. Turned out General Morris had been unaware he’d been hosting a colony of plastic aliens in his office, so there was a chance he hadn’t sent her anywhere at all. It had been years since she’d seen him. She thought she’d shaken him.
“Is this being a problem, ex-Gunnery Sergeant Strike Team Leader Warden Kerr?” Presit asked archly.
“Not if the general doesn’t make it one.”
“I’m sure he are having more important things to be doing than to be poking you with sharp objects.”
“Let’s hope so.” Torin could see the general’s mouth moving, and the lieutenant at his side had both thumbs working his slate. “I’m a civilian now. He pokes me, I’m poking him back.”
Presit flashed teeth. “I are looking forward to it.”
Craig leaned in until Torin could feel his breath against her ear. “No worries,” he murmured, “he doesn’t like me either.”
“The man has no taste.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“You are to be sitting there.” Presit nodded toward two empty spaces on the first row of the bleachers, at the end farthest from the podium and the data sheet.
“And you?” Craig asked.
“I are having work to do.” She patted his hand and walked toward the podium.
“She might’ve mentioned that,” Craig murmured.
“She might’ve,” Torin agreed. Hosting this assembly explained how a reporter—however popular—had enough pull to overrule both General Morris and the H’san. At a sudden sound from the crowd, accompanied by a number of pointing fingers, Torin glanced up and counted thirty-seven camera drones maneuvering into position overhead. Cameras, by law, had to be large enough to prevent any chance of recording without the consent of all parties involved. In this instance, entering the plaza for an official government function, counted as consent. Presit usually traveled with an operator, and Torin couldn’t recall her ever using a drone. From her expression, fifteen meters high now she was on camera, Presit had strong artistic opinions on their use.