Tsecha could see the tension in the posture of Diplomatic Suborn Inèa, much more so than in Lonen’s or Sànalàn’s. As if she knew what Shai would say next. So, it happens. He remained silent, and waited for what he knew must come.
“Much of our behavior leaves us at a disadvantage in dealing with humanish. We speak as we feel. We act in honesty. We offer everything. Humanish take all of it, and return nothing.” Shai sat back in her chair and stretched her right arm out before her on the table, palm up. A gesture of pleading. “And so in the end are we left with nothing.”
Tsecha toyed with the ends of his overrobe cuffs, rearranging them so as to expose the very edges of his many scars.
Shai understood the challenging nature of the gesture—her hesitancy before she spoke indicated such. Yet still she spoke. “We do not deserve nothing. We deserve to know all that the humanish wish to withhold from us.” She turned her palm facedown, a sign of an unpleasant decision having been reached. “Morden nìRau Cèel sent us here because of our strength, because he knew that we would nurture and protect all that was as idomeni in the middle of this chill unholiness. In doing so, we have sacrificed much, including that which we sought most to protect. Our sovereignty.” She drew her hands together, one atop the other, again palm down. The decision confirmed.
“I have consulted with Cèel these past weeks, and with our xenolinguists, and our behaviorists. Our conclusions concur. The humanish think us weak when we act as our way demands. They see our open disputation as disunity, our godly challenges as discord. They do not think us strong, and because of this, they feel right to hold back information from us, to break agreements and disregard contracts.”
“But you wished breakage of the Elyan Haárin contract, Shai, and truly,” Tsecha muttered without gesture, so low that only Shai could hear him.
Shai responded by raising the pitch of her voice, as in prayer. “Thus will we act strong as the humanish understand strong. Thus will we withhold our opinions, and keep our arguments amongst ourselves. Thus will we behave as one before them, as they behave as one before us.”
Lonen crossed her left arm in front of her chest in supplication. “NìaRauta Shai, we will damn our souls if we behave as false.”
“Then we will petition Caith to protect us, nìa Lonen, for only in this annihilation will we remain whole.” Shai bared her teeth for an instant only, a truncated expression that signified as much as a humanish shrug. Or as little. “We are the stones that form the Way. Although we are as nothing, other Vynshàrau will tread on us, and thus make their way along the Bridge to the Star.”
Tsecha remained quiet as the last tones of Shai’s speech drifted through the air and settled, like Dathim’s tile dust. He looked from figure to figure, searching for the subtle changes that would signal their agreement with the Suborn Oligarch. The elevation as they sat up straighter, to show their respect. The lifted curve of their left hands, to show their certainty of agreement. He saw them in Lonen, and of course, in Sànalàn, and in Inèa. He kept his own hands clasped before him on the table. He had reached his own difficult decision many years before—this night saw only the laying of another stone in his own long Way.
“Humanish secrecy defines itself not by what it does but by that which it leaves behind.” Tsecha heard his own voice, low and measured. He petitioned no one with his words. “Trails of blood, and humiliation. Former Interior Minister van Reuter would attest to this, I believe.” He bared his teeth wide, in the truest idomeni fashion. “I have read of the humanish writer Sandoval, who wrote that secrets bind with their own weight, that to carry many secrets is to wrap oneself in a chain of one’s own making.” He rounded his shoulders and slumped in his chair, a most obvious display of his displeasure. “You have bid us don our chains, at a time when we must move as free. You damn us, Shai.”
Shai tossed her head and fluttered her right hand once, a gesture of the greatest disregard. “I seek to save us, Tsecha. It is you who will damn us with your beliefs and your false predictions. You announce them before the humanish, and thus give them reason to fear and mock us. You claim to speak for the gods, and in the gods’ names you will dilute and dishonor us!”
Tsecha sensed the mood of the room, the acceptance of Shai’s words in the postures of the others. “You speak as you do, Shai, because nìa Lonen and nìa Inèa and nìa Sànalàn give you leave with their every movement. In this room, at this time, you know how each of us regards you, and use such as a basis to decide how you will next act. No indecision. No uncertainty. Yet you will take that away from us all and call it strength, and you dare to accuse me of dishonor!”
“It is settled, Tsecha!”
“It was settled days ago. Before yesterday’s meeting, when Anais commended the idomeni for their forthrightness, you already knew of this plan. You have studied the hiding lesson well, have you not, Shai? We both know that there is more to this than contracts.” Tsecha tilted his head to the left until his ear touched his shoulder, and let the anger wash over him like the cold season air to come. “Say her name, Shai! In the name of annihilation, say the name of the one whom you will keep from this place, in the name of your new-found secrecy!”
Shai’s voice lowered in menace. “Until we have received sufficient information regarding the condition of Lieutenant Pascal and the reason for the attack on him, we cannot allow your Kilian within these walls. Nor can we allow you to leave the embassy compound. It is a precaution—”
“It is cowardice!” Tsecha shouted now, his voice reverberating off the polished stone walls. “Wanton disregard of the truth you have denied since we lived at Temple. And now you will take this new truth that only you and your behaviorists see and use it as a way to separate me from my Kièrshia!”
Shai tensed, then raised her hands in argument. “Your Kilian—”
“My Kilian, my Jani, my Captain. My Eyes and Ears. My student. My teacher. Mine.” Tsecha forced himself silent. His heart pounded; his face burned. So unseemly, to rage in such an uncontrolled way. “You have learned well, Shai. In a few months, you have become as Anais or Li Cao. You will shut me up in this place, for my safety. You will keep me from my Jani and my Jani from me, for my own good. When has protection ever destroyed so utterly that which it was supposed to defend? Tell me, Shai, and damn your soul if you lie of this!”
Shai sat still. Then she rested her arms as Tsecha did. As a secular, her sleeves lacked the red banding that complemented à lérine scars so well. Her pale scars seemed to fade into the sameness of her skin.
Tsecha studied Shai’s exposed arms for the ragged red of fresher lacerations, but could see none, not even the self-inflicted hack to the forearm that signaled the end of a bout. It has been a long while since your last challenge. He looked down at his own arms, and the spare scattering of red. It has been a long time since mine. How they would slash and stab at one another, the smooth parries of youth replaced by the deceptions and strategems of age. I await your challenge, nìa. It would no doubt prove an interesting encounter.
“You may well pronounce my soul damned, nìRau ti nìRau. You are my Chief Propitiator, my intercessor with the gods, and such is most assuredly your right. In the ways of the gods, no Vynshàrau is your dominant.” Shai pushed away from the table, whatever challenge she felt to make put aside for another time. “But when you act as ambassador, you become a secular, and all seculars in this place answer to me. I have ordered that you will not leave this place. You will, therefore, not leave this place until I lift the order. For your safety.” She stood, her overrobe falling in wrinkled folds to the floor. “Glories of this too-late night to you, Tsecha.” She swept out the door behind Lonen and Inèa, and finally, his Sànalàn.
Tsecha gestured in easy agreement as the door closed. “Yes, nìa.” He thought again of his Hansen. How he would pace and rail at times like these, when the Laumrau or the humanish Consulate had acted in some stupid manner and he knew nothing could be done to stop them. Tsecha tried to recall the comme
nt Hansen used in those situations, which twinned so well the one he found himself in now. Pissing into the wind. Yes, that was it, and truly.
Tsecha tried to sleep, and failed. Tried to pray, and failed again.
He dressed. He walked. Throughout the embassy, and the altar room where he would soon pass his days, much to Shai’s rejoicing. Out on the lake-facing verandas, where even in the dim of night, Vynshàrau contemplated, wrote, discussed.
Across the lawns. Past the buildings. He knew where he went, though what good it would do, he could not say. He wondered if Shai now had him watched, or if she felt her confinement order eliminated the need.
He had just reached the treeline when he heard the sound. He paused to listen to it, such a contrast to the rustle of leaves and crunch of undergrowth. The high-pitched sweep sweep of stone against metal. Odd to hear it in this place, at this time. It was a sound of the quarries, the weapons forges, and during the time of war, the hallowed courtyards of Temple. The steady hasp and scrape of a Vynshà sharpening a blade.
Tsecha followed the sound to a small clearing. Why did it not surprise him to find the crop-headed figure seated on a stump, stone in one hand, ax-hammer in the other? “You work so early, ní Dathim?”
“As do you, nìRau.” Dathim did not look up. He had hung a lampstick by a cord around his neck; the yellow light illuminated the work of his hands. “Did the noise awaken you, as well?”
Tsecha lowered to the ground beside the stump. He looked up at Dathim’s face and tried to discern his feeling, but all was obscured by the odd shadows cast by the lampstick. “I heard no noise in the embassy. My suborn awakened me.” He debated telling Dathim of his house arrest. The Haárin had declared himself to him, and for that reason alone he had a right to know Tsecha’s status.
But Tsecha decided against doing so. I must fight secrets with secrets. Dathim would find out from the guards or the embassy staff soon enough, and he would understand the reason for silence. If Shai discovered that the Chief Propitiator discussed such matters with an Haárin, confinement to the embassy for one could become confinement to rooms for both. “What noise did you hear, ní Dathim?”
“The ComPol sirens. Other sirens as well, for the skimmers that transport humanish sick and injured. But then, one hears those every night.” Dathim set the stone aside, and held the ax-hammer blade close to his face. “Tonight has been most different.” He tilted the blade end back and forth, then ran a finger along the edge. “Interior Security has been most active tonight, nìRau, and truly. Constant passes up and down our borders. Along the lakeshore, as nearly as they could approach. Overhead, in demiskimmers.” Something about the blade made him frown. He lowered it and once more ministered to it with the stone. “I saw all this. Then I saw the embassy lights, and the activity of our guards.”
Tsecha looked through the trees, and watched the green and blue lights of Vynshàrau and Interior lakeskimmers shimmer and reflect over the water. “My Lucien was shot.”
“He is the youngish, the pale-haired soldier?” Dathim nodded in the humanish way, which signified that his head moved up and down. “I have seen him walk with you. I have seen him walk alone, in the public areas. Even though he stays within the allowed boundaries, the guards follow him most closely. He watches as someone who remembers what he sees. Not always a wise thing, for humanish.” He lowered the stone to his lap and pointed to another tight formation of lakeskimmers that flitted on the Interior side of the Michigan Strip boundary. “The last time I saw this much activity was in the winter, when they took the dominant van Reuter away. For the entire season afterwards, when I traveled into the city, I heard the talk about that night. And now I see it again, for one humanish lieutenant who walks where he is allowed and remembers what he sees.”
Tsecha thought back to the night of van Reuter’s arrest. The incomprehensible cold. His Jani’s rescue from Interior, which he had planned with Lucien. The pursuit. The fleeing. “My Jani was with Lucien. Any more than that, no one knows.”
“Did she shoot him?” Dathim lifted his hand in question. “She shoots, nìRau. Such is her way.”
“She would not shoot him!” Tsecha heard his own voice raised too loud, and berated himself. Such a shout, an avalanche of sharpening stones could not have drowned out. “They are friends,” he added, much more quietly.
“As you say, nìRau.” Dathim turned the stone over. The surface changed from rough to shiny, from honing to polishing. “But friends often turn on friends. This I know from reading humanish history.”
“I, too, have read humanish history, ní Dathim.”
“Have you, nìRau?” Another sweep of the stone. “No wonder you walk the night.”
Tsecha clenched his hands at the Haárin’s assured tone. “You vex me, ní Dathim.”
“I am unworthy to sit in your presence, nìRau.” Unworthy though he was, Dathim made no move to rise. Instead, he set the ax-hammer and stone on a nearby log and looked out once more toward the water. “I must return to sleep. Tomorrow, I visit the Exterior Ministry for the first time, to examine the space which Anais Ulanova wishes me to tile.” The dimness played tricks with the bones of his face, filling in hollows with seeming substance, combining with his hair to make him appear even more humanish. “They will show me, among other places, a lobby, and a conference room. I am to look over each location very carefully, and pick the one that will highlight my stunning work the best—this was I told, and truly.” Ready as he claimed to be to leave, Dathim made no attempt to gather his tools. “I am to look. And look.” Instead, he sat slightly forward, hands on knees, perched to stand, yet waiting…waiting….
Tsecha waited, as well, for the most seemly offer he knew to be forthcoming.
“Is there anything in particular you would have me look for, nìRau?”
Tsecha felt his heart catch, as it had all those times in Rauta Shèràa when his Hansen had made the same request. How Dathim had come to know of the behavior of spies, he did not think it wise to ask. Better to simply accept, and quickly. “Anything of this shooting, ní Dathim. Anything you see of my Jani.” He picked up a twig and used it to poke beneath some fallen leaves. “Although I do not know how you will remove it from Exterior grounds.”
“I know of facilities, nìRau. So I told you.” Dathim grew still as an idomeni demiskimmer skirted the shore. “You should believe your fellow Haárin when they tell you of matters, and trust them to do as they say.”
“Fellow—?” Tsecha’s shoulders sagged as fatigue suddenly overtook him—he could muster no anger at Dathim’s impertinence “You claim to share skein and station with me, ní Dathim? You claim me as equal?”
“No, nìRau.” Dathim stood slowly, long limbs unwinding. “I am able to leave this place, and you are not. You are a prisoner, and I am free. In such an instance, we are most unequal, would you not say?”
Tsecha twisted his head so quickly, his neck bones cracked like dried leaves. “You know of that? So soon?” Even the darkness could not obscure his shock—that he knew, though little did he care.
Dathim looked down on Tsecha from his great height. “Yes, nìRau—I know of your restriction. Thus did I hear from an embassy Haárin, who overheard a conversation between your suborn and Diplomatic Suborn Inèa. After your meeting, when you were informed of your imprisonment in the interest of your safety.” He bent to pick up his tools. “Such listening is the way of Earth, nìRau. The way of humanish. Of your Eyes and Ears. It shocks me that you have not learned it better.” He strode off, sharpening stone clenched in one hand, ax-hammer in the other, leaving Tsecha alone in the dark and the leaves.
CHAPTER 14
“Look at the light, Jani.”
Jani glanced out the corner of her eye at the red illumination that fluttered just beyond arms’ reach.
“You know better than that.” Calvin Montoya stepped out from behind the lightbox. “I need to assess the activity level of your augmentation so I know how to treat you.”
“I�
�m not injured. I wasn’t shot.”
“Look at the light.”
Jani kept her eyes fixed on a point above the lightbox. Then, slowly, she dropped her gaze until she stared at the red head-on. “See? I told you I was fi—”
Suddenly, the light twinned. Once, then again and again. The pinpoints skittered across the source surface and throbbed in programmed patterns.
The examination room spun—Jani had to grip the edge of the scanbed to keep from toppling to the floor.
“That’s what I thought,” Montoya said smugly. “On the downward slope, but still firing. Augie had enough of a jolt to initiate normally—I think we can let you settle on your own without a takedown.” He shut off the source, and the red dots faded to black. “Show me an augie that doesn’t kick in when its owner’s shot at, and I’ll show one worthless bundle of brain cells.”
Jani struggled to maintain her equilibrium. The walls of the examining room billowed out, then in, as though the room breathed. “I can show you another worthless—”
“Testy, aren’t we?” Montoya pushed the lightbox to the far corner of the examination room. “Lieutenant Pascal will be all right.”
“He didn’t look all right in the ambulance.” Jani watched Montoya fuss with a tray of instruments. He still wore the trimmed beard she recalled from the winter; his band-collar dinner jacket mirrored its rich black color. Together, they made him look like a cleric in a historical drama. Bless me, Father, for I don’t know what the hell’s going on. “How much longer will he be in Surgery?”
“They’ve only had him for half an hour.” Montoya’s voice still chided, but more gently. “He suffered serious injuries in addition to the burn. A shooter blast is like a kick in the gut—you know that as well as I do. Along with internal bleeding, add a ruptured peritoneum and a bruised kidney.” He pulled a stool in front of the scanbed and sat. “He’s young, strong, and augmented—he’ll heal quickly, but he’ll still need to heal.” He fingered the scuffed knee of Jani’s trousers. “Now, you said you fell after the shot blitzed out.”
Law of Survival Page 17