Someone had certainly played her for one.
[I believe I saw Idonae.] The Nyyzen Ambassador spoke, its odd voice sounding like echoes in Kreise’s ears.
“You did.” Hadad Foltz seemed tired.
“This is a disaster,” Uzval said, her voice muffled by her breathing mask.
“Something certainly went wrong.” Pilar Restrepo wasn’t trying to hide her anger. It filled every single word. “Stop hiding your face, Orenda. You set this up, didn’t you? You wanted the entire solar system to remember all the problems on Etae.”
Kreise closed her eyes. Her lashes brushed against the palms of her hands. She didn’t want to look at anyone. She was tired of seeing, tired of making decisions, tired of this entire game.
“Orenda,” Restrepo snapped. “Look up.”
Another voice filled the room. It came from a screen behind her, a deep, chilling voice. A narrator’s voice.
“Oh, no,” Foltz said. “They’re running the history of Etae concurrent with the riot.”
At this, Kreise did raise her head. On every other screen, a program—hastily made—started recounting the known history of Etae. At the bottom of the feed, a tagline read:
Courtesy of Arek Soseki
Mayor
the City of Armstrong
“The little weasel.” Restrepo stood. “What’s he hoping to accomplish?”
[He has told you. He does not want terrorists in his dome.]
“Then he shouldn’t let anyone in or out. For god’s sake.” Restrepo moved her heavyset body to the nearest screen. “One person’s terrorist is someone else’s freedom fighter.”
“Not now,” Kreise said. She didn’t want to hear those arguments again.
She was staring, mesmerized, at the screen closest to her. Even though the package was hastily put together—the production footage was raw and unchanged from its original forms—it was compelling.
But the history of Etae was compelling, from the moment the Idonae decided to wipe out the Ynnels and strip the northern continent of vorgefur, a mineral that had no real use to anyone in the Alliance, but powered much of the Idonae’s technology, to the hideous death of the Child Martyr, which had brought the current government into power, the entire history of Etae had behind it great storytelling compressed into a very short period of time—decades, instead of centuries.
Kreise turned her head slightly so that she could see the screen showing the riot. All she could see were heads and backs and bodies, and the occasional elongated arm, the fingers hidden as they sliced their way through the crowd.
Kreise had wanted the Etaens to be discredited, but not like this. Not at the cost of lives.
People were screaming, but the screams were barely audible. Someone—thankfully—had kept the sound down.
Armstrong police were shoving their way toward the center of the melee. Kreise hoped someone had warned them about what they’d encounter, or this situation would get even worse.
“We cannot meet with them now,” Foltz said.
“We have to,” Kreise said. “All this death can’t be for nothing.”
[But it will be for nothing. No matter what happens, we can no longer approve Etae’s inclusion in the Alliance. Someone has thwarted us in this.]
The Ambassador sounded disappointed, but Kreise had learned not to read much into its tones. The two Nyyzen whose linked minds created the third gave her no clue either. They sat in their chairs, facing straight ahead, their eyes glazed.
“Yeah,” Restrepo said, her back to the table. “It was Orenda.”
Kreise shook her head. “I would never do this.”
She worked in diplomacy. Diplomacy, the art of forging alliances—or of breaking them—without the loss of life.
Had she caused this failure?
She didn’t even want to think about it.
“You’re the one who wanted the meeting inside the Alliance,” Restrepo said. “You’re the one who prevented it from happening on Earth. You knew that Armstrong had tough port laws, and your people handled the booking of the hall as well as the hotel. Didn’t they know that Döbryn’s people would need approval?”
“Stop it, Pilar.” Uzval’s voice had gained strength. Her long thin fingers were bent backward, as they had been in the last meeting. “We accomplish nothing by bickering. We have to figure out a way to save this situation. I believe the only way we can do that is meet with the Etaens. Otherwise, we look as foolish as the city itself.”
“Are you looking at that?” Restrepo extended a hand toward one of the screens. “They’re probably killing innocent Armstrong citizens right now.”
“I thought you were one of their backers,” Foltz said.
“I am, and they were provoked. We all saw the Idonae—nice touch, Orenda. Anyone with brains knows that seeing an Idonae will set off even the sanest Etaen. It’s almost as bad as showing the footage of the Child Martyr’s death, which will probably show up—” Restrepo glanced at one of the other screens “—oh, any moment now.”
[We meet with them. We just do not explain or justify the meeting. We remind the press that this meeting was to be confidential and we fine the Mayor of Armstrong for breaking our agreement.]
“I’m sure that’ll go over well,” Kreise said. “The mayor has already shown how malleable he is.”
Foltz glared at her. He never did appreciate sarcasm. “We have to do something. If we abandon Döbryn now, we look like cowards, and all this damage is for nothing.”
“We are cowards,” Restrepo said.
“Yes, we are,” Kreise said and looked pointedly at Restrepo. “But you and I speak of different things. I think we’re cowards for not standing up for our principles. If we had done that, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”
“We have different principles.” Restrepo’s tone was flat.
[Principles are not the issue. Damage control is. We hold the meeting. We listen to Etae’s case. We make our decision. Then we do not report our decision for a year or more. By then, this entire crisis will be forgotten.]
“A year?” Restrepo whirled. “We don’t have a year.”
[We have all the time we need.]
“We have corporations who are trying to go through channels right now. They want those medical procedures that Etae perfected, and they’ll get them, legally or illegally. Let’s at least make this legal.” Restrepo had her hands flat on the table.
“We’re watching those medical procedures at work now.” Uzval’s fingers were still raised. “Look, Pilar. Is that what you want for your corporations?”
Kreise felt her breath catch. She hadn’t expected Uzval to be so blunt.
Restrepo did not look at the screen.
Uzval tilted her head slightly. “We sacrifice much for some corporations’ desire to step outside the law.”
Restrepo crossed her arms. “Etae’s entrance into the Alliance is inevitable. They’ll join us eventually.”
“Perhaps,” Kreise said. “Decades from now, when they’ve shown they’re civilized.”
“Let’s hear their case,” Restrepo said, “and then decide. They may be more civilized than you think.”
Kreise looked at the screen. She couldn’t even make out what was happening. “I don’t think they’re civilized at all,” she muttered.
“You are ignoring the risks.” Uzval’s voice was almost inaudible in her breathing mask. She was speaking to Restrepo. “They are considerable.”
“We take those risks with all the alien groups that have come into the Alliance,” Restrepo said.
“Really?” Uzval extended her long fingers toward the screen. “The fact remains that much of Etae’s current population has been enhanced in unacceptable ways—”
“By current standards,” Foltz said.
“—and,” Uzval said as if the interruption hadn’t happened, “the fact remains that we would let walking weapons into our cities, into our once-safe ports. Are we willing to do that?”
> Everyone turned toward the monitors—everyone except the Nyyzen. Kreise wasn’t sure about the Ambassador.
She sighed. This group would continue fighting until someone took the lead. And that someone was always her, even though she wasn’t certain why.
“The Ambassador is right,” she said. “We hold the meetings. We report a little bit to the press so that they feel satisfied, and we withhold our decision until the furor from today’s riots dies down.”
“Provided, of course, that the Etaens even survive those riots.” Restrepo’s voice was bitter.
Kreise ignored her. “I’ll put the motion on the table. I’ll need a second.”
“I’ll second,” Uzval said, surprising her.
“Then I’ll call the vote,” Kreise said.
“Divide it into two parts,” Restrepo said. “The meeting and withholding the decision.”
“I already made the motion,” Kreise said. She glanced at the second screen. Just as Foltz predicted, the scenes of the Child Martyr’s death were playing.
The little girl, her face a mask of agony as conventional weapons sliced her in half, dominated the screen.
Kreise had to look away. “All in favor?” she asked, and as the voices rose around the room, she knew she wouldn’t even have to call for opposition.
They would have their meeting, and it would be toothless, just like she had initially wanted.
Only this vote didn’t feel like a victory. Diplomacy had not worked.
She had failed, and her failure had cost lives.
Thirty-two
Anatolya’s arms were wrapped protectively around her head, and she plunged forward, bent at the waist, so that she could avoid the blows raining on her from above. Her team had vanished, lost in the crowd. She didn’t even try to look for them.
The shouts had become a blur of sound, the hands reaching for her, grabbing her, pushing her, slapping her had become a blur also. All that mattered was moving forward, getting away, if indeed there was an away.
She thought she might die here, in this horrible dome on this sterile land. Her heart rose and she thought of Etae—how much she’d lost for Etae—and this time, this would be an unworthy sacrifice.
She hadn’t even made it to the Alliance. She had no chance to press her case, and she wouldn’t now.
There was a curb ahead of her, and a parked—and now damaged—aircar that she slammed into because she hadn’t been able to see it over the mass of bodies. The stench gagged her—she hadn’t been around so many frightened humans in a long time, not since the riots after the Child Martyr’s death.
Riots she had sometimes started.
A blow landed in the center of her back, knocking the breath from her. She had to extend a hand to keep from falling—she wasn’t enhanced even though her team was, but she sure wished for enhancement now.
If she fell, she would be trampled to death. She knew that as clearly as if it had already happened. She would die and no one—
A hand grabbed her arm, then another, and an arm wrapped around her back. A normal arm, a human arm, not an elongated one. Bodies crowded around her, not hitting her—protecting her.
She looked up, saw a uniform, saw an unrecognizable face—young, male, professional—underneath a cap that had Armstrong’s city symbol on it.
Police? Saving her? What was this?
They couldn’t talk to her, probably didn’t know she was linked or didn’t want to risk having the message intercepted by the crowd. Another police officer put her arm around Anatolya too, and they whisked her forward.
This time, they actually moved ahead—plowing through the crowd as if it were made of water. There were no hands on her, besides the officers’, no blows, no slaps across her face.
She could not see her people. They had vanished into the crowd. She caught the faint copper scent of blood, human blood, and shuddered.
“It’s okay, miss,” the cop, the human cop, the human cop from Armstrong in the Old Universe, said to her, right in her ear so that his voice rose above the screams and the cries and the shouts filled with anger. “We’ll get you out of here.”
“My team…” she said, but even she could feel the futility of speech. Unless her mouth was right beside his ear, he couldn’t hear her, and neither could anyone else.
Cameras floated above her, taking in the mess, and aircars, and glaring faces—some of them, she knew, reporters, all trying to make things worse.
Anatolya wanted to close her eyes, to slip away mentally, never to return. But Döbryn would never have allowed that.
You have to fight, little girl, he would say to her when things got difficult—when memories got too difficult. You have to fight.
She didn’t want to fight. She was tired of fighting. She had listened to him all her life, and even now, years after his death, she still listened to him.
He got her to place one foot in front of the other, to help the officers, to keep her eyes open so that she would know when that final fateful blow hit her and stopped her heart.
The crowd parted, revealing more officers. They were using some sort of stun weapon to keep the rioters back. She could hear its electric crackle over the unbearable din.
Behind the officers was the airlimo that Collier had promised her in what seemed like another life. Coward. Bastard. He was still in the Port, safe, when her people were struggling with the crowd.
The back passenger door to the limo opened, and the officers forced her inside. It was cool there, the interior smelling of real leather and some kind of perfume. Her stomach growled, a mind of its own despite the trauma.
Her officer—he had never introduced himself—had his hand on the outside of the door. He was going to slam it shut, but she caught it just in time.
“My people,” she said.
He shook his head and leaned in. “I can’t hear you.”
He shouted those words and they seemed extraordinarily loud. The airlimo was soundproofed. Already the noise from the riots had faded. Only what came in the door reached her at all.
She crooked a finger, making him lean in so that he could hear her.
“My people,” she said again. “Where are they?”
He shook his head. “Our instructions were to get you.”
“Instructions from whom?”
“Dunno. Orders get filtered. Someone in the city. I’m sure your people will be all right.”
“No,” she said. “They won’t. You have to get them. I won’t leave without them.”
But he was already backing out of the car. He slammed his open palm against the hood, and the limo rose.
“Close the door!” he shouted.
She pushed to keep it open. “My people,” she yelled. “I can’t leave them.”
But the door slammed itself closed. She had to move away to keep from being caught in its mechanism.
She leaned forward and pounded on the opaque plastic between the back and the driver’s compartment. The plastic cleared, revealing no driver at all.
She cursed, trying to find a way to stop this thing. But technology wasn’t her specialty. She had no idea how to change out the chips and reorder the car.
Hey! She sent through her network. I’m in the airlimo. Stop it! Then you can board. Stop it—
You are too far away, Gianni sent back. We’re….
The connection snapped. She didn’t know if he was silenced or the link was broken or both. She tried to send again, and then again, but she got nothing.
She slammed against the smooth leather seats, her arms crossed. Damn them. The Alliance had gotten what it wanted after all.
She was approaching them alone, without backup, her mission in question.
She had lost, even before she had begun.
Thirty-three
Even though she had been cursing Gumiela all day, DeRicci realized that her promotion still held perks.
She stared at the riot playing on the wall screen that opened up whenever the department had an a
ll-points emergency, and read the message that flared red along the bottom.
All detectives junior grade and below report to the Port office. Bring standard-issue weapons and riot gear. All detectives…
She had been junior grade before Gumiela had made her assistant chief, although very few people knew that. Each demotion had cut back her seniority. She often held the same rank as her partners, most of whom were fresh out of school.
And now she didn’t have to report. She could stay at the comfort of her desk and ignore the out-of-control citizens fighting in the streets below.
She had been in enough of these brawls to last her the rest of her life. She didn’t need to get in another one, especially centered on an issue she couldn’t even pretend to understand. Etae? She hadn’t even heard of the place before this morning. And terrorists? The good citizens of Armstrong would have been better off worrying about the criminals in their midst.
Eventually, she would have to investigate—see if the current troubles with the Etaens in Armstrong had any connection to Carolyn Lahiri—but for the moment, she could remain at her desk and look through files.
Bless those perks.
She couldn’t shut off the wall monitor—it had an emergency control that kept it running so long as a police presence was needed—but she could decrease its size, which she did.
Now the image only covered part of the wall—a nuisance, rather than a problem. She turned her attention back to the screen on her desk.
She had been examining the file on the suicide of Calbert Lahiri, Carolyn’s brother. The reports had been thorough and up-to-date; the file was complete as well. Apparently, politics had influenced this file as well; since Calbert’s father was one of the most respected judges in the Tribunal system, Calbert’s death had been investigated with a thoroughness usually reserved to the most gruesome murders.
Calbert had been several years younger than Carolyn, and had gone in and out of therapy for nearly a decade. The cause of his death, one of his therapists said, was that he had never left home.
Consequences Page 21