Law of Survival

by Kristine Smith

  The assembled grew restive as a guard was dispatched to find a chair of the proper height. Burkett took the opportunity to lean back. “What the hell is going on, Kilian?”

  Jani grinned down at him. “I think it’s the new order asserting itself, General.”

  “New order? I haven’t gotten used to the old one yet.” He dug into the briefbag that the major had handed off to him during the seating, and pulled out a recording board to take notes.

  Nema, meanwhile, walked to his seat beside Feyó, letting his hand trail along the back of his former seat at the point of the V. “I have right of suborn, ná Feyó?” he asked as he sat.

  “Yes, nìR—” Feyó stopped herself. The new order had apparently caught her by surprise, as well. “Yes, ní Tsecha.”

  “Nìa?” Nema held out his hand toward Jani. “Come.”

  Jani hesitated as every face in the room, humanish and idomeni, turned toward her. Then she rose and stepped out onto the floor. Nema bared his teeth when he spotted the ring; the look sombered when he caught sight of the braided soulcloth. “So the soldier has at last reclaimed her soul.” He took her hand and squeezed it in most humanish reassurance.

  Jani’s aches had receded in the background, supplanted by a soft roaring that filled her head. Welcome to the way it is. She took her place at the meeting table, in a hastily acquired highseat next to Feyó’s suborn. She looked across the V, and found herself the focus of distressed examination by PM Cao and her aide. Jani bared her teeth wide, which only seemed to alarm them more.

  The blue-clad Elyan Haárin clerk set a folder before Nema, then walked downtable and handed one to Jani. Their eyes met. The Haárin’s widened. Then she bared her teeth. “Hah! Ná Kièrshia! I rejoice that Lescaux did not kill you, so I could laugh at your eyes!” Her sharp laugh cut through the room, an open acknowledgment of everything the humanish avoided, passed over, or studied with sidelong glances.

  The renewed conversational buzz settled eventually. “Now.” Shai lifted her right hand upward in supplication. “Now, we begin.”

  “—not possible.” Ulanova’s aide shook her head. “Our position has not changed from that of early this week. The Haárin components cannot be readily retrofitted to the existing plant, and the time it would take to develop the necessary adaptive technology would be better spent designing and building a new facility.”

  “Your Elyan governor signed a contract with us,” Feyó said softly, “through his Department of Utilities suborn.”

  “Suborns make mistakes, Nìa Feyó.” PM Cao closed her left hand into a fist and held it up to chest height, palm-side facing up. “Their dominants cannot always be held responsible for what they do.” She smiled, but the expression soon froze when she heard Shai’s suborn laugh and saw the increasing curvature of Shai’s shoulders.

  Jani bit her lip and avoided Nema’s stare, which was at that moment burning a hole in the side of her face. I will not laugh at my Prime Minister. Not even when she calls a made-sect Haárin by a born-sect title and compounds the offense by gesturing in High Vynshàrau that said Haárin is acting like a brat, thus insulting the Suborn Oligarch in the process.

  “I am not born-sect, Your Excellency.” Feyó kept her voice level and her hands folded on the table. “And I do not believe that I am acting as foolish.”

  Cao’s golden face darkened. “I meant no offense, nì—” The apology fizzled as she tried to figure out exactly what her offense had been.

  “No, I know you did not, Your Excellency.” Shai uncurved her shoulders, but only a little. “Humanish never do. They make mistakes, because their suborns do not instruct them properly, and they cannot be expected to know such, because they are not responsible.”

  Cao’s eyes widened in surprise. She looked at Nema, who gestured in commiseration, but didn’t speak.

  Well, you wanted him out and you got your wish. Now you get to deal with Shai, who doesn’t like you and won’t cut you any slack when you garble her languages. Jani flipped the file folder open, then shut it. “We cannot allow insults, unintentional or otherwise, to obscure the matter we are assembled here to discuss. Karistos city engineers have stated that the soonest the new treatment plant can be constructed and qualified for use is eighteen months from the day of ground-breaking. This means a new plant is at least two years away. The current facility is already functioning at maximum and the feeling is that service cut-offs will need to be instituted in order to meet demand for the coming summer. These same engineers have also stated, in writing, that the Haárin microbial filter array being offered for retrofit can be in-line within sixty Common days and if put in place will alleviate the need for any type of service slowdown.” She looked across the table to find a bank of humanish faces regarding her as the enemy. “Will someone tell me what the problem is!”

  Ulanova spoke slowly, grudgingly, as if any word spoken to Jani was one word too many. “My engineers disagree.”

  And so it went. Two hours passed before Cao requested a recess, which Shai reluctantly granted.

  “She’ll just keep pitting her experts against Elyas’s experts, and she’ll win because she’s here and they’re there.” Kern Standish kicked at the ground and shoved his hands in his pockets.

  “Why aren’t the Elyan engineers here?” Jani leaned against a tree to straighten her back. She had left Nema to the Elyan Haárin and Burkett to his major, and had adjourned to the allowed gardens with Kern and the other Cabinet aides she had worked with over the months. She had steeled herself against their reactions to her appearance, but thus far had fielded no more than a few pointed stares. “If they’d left Elyas the same time as the Haárin, they’d have been here.”

  “They were supposed to be,” a young woman from AgMin piped. “All hell broke loose just before they were scheduled to leave. A shuttleport nav rig blitzed out—nothing could leave the ground for four days.”

  Jani looked at the averted faces around her. “Sabotage?” She received a mime’s chorus of shrugs and headshakes in reply. “Did anyone see where Ulanova went after we adjourned?”

  “The public veranda, like usual,” replied the AgMin aide.

  “I’ll see you inside.” Jani set off in that direction.

  “Gonna give her the evil eye?” One of the Treasury aides, who had been silent up until then, shot Jani a guilty glance, then turned his back.

  Kern bristled. “Damn it, Maurier, you really are as stupid as you look, aren’t you?”

  “Well, it’s one more idea than we have at the moment.” Jani forced a smile and received a few in return, which under the circumstances was probably the best she could hope for.

  She cut around the outer perimeter wall of the public veranda. As she neared the entry that led out to the gardens, she heard voices, Cao’s and Ulanova’s.

  “—smoothing things with Shai will be difficult, Ani.”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  “I suppose we’ll have to pay attention during our language lessons from now on.” Cao’s voice held a bite she never let her public hear. “Do you think they’ll send Tsecha home?”

  There was a weighty pause before Ulanova replied. “It is to be hoped.”

  “Do you think so?” Cao sounded doubtful. “I would miss him. Even when he aggravated the hell out of me, I felt no malice in him.”

  “He only hides it better than the rest.”

  “Hmm.” Now it was Cao’s turn to ponder. “I think this revelation puts a new spin on things, no matter what you say.”

  “We all knew she was a medical freak, Li. Shroud’s pet experiment. If she thinks this qualifies her as some sort of emissary, it is up to us to let her know that she is mistaken. We will have to wait until after Tsecha is recalled, of course—she is his favorite. But we shouldn’t have to put up with either of them for much longer.”

  “As you say.” The high-pitched click of heels on tile sounded. “I have to talk to the moderates before we reconvene, make sure they understand our point of
view.” The steps silenced. “Will you be all right, Ani?”

  “Of course.” Ulanova’s voice sounded smooth and strong. “I’ll meet you inside.”

  Jani waited until she heard the door to the embassy close. Then she stepped through the opening and onto the veranda.

  Ulanova stood before a column-like fountain. She held one hand under the gentle stream and let it trickle over her fingers. She appeared thoughtful, calmer than she had in the courtyard, but still not relaxed.

  Jani took another step, making sure that her shoes scraped against the tile. “Have you visited your Doc Chief in hospital, Your Excellency?”

  Ulanova spun around. Water sprayed from her fingers, splashing over her tunic and arcing through the air.

  “She was dying when they brought her in.” Jani tried to clasp her hands behind her back, but her cracked collarbone balked and she had to settle for sliding them in her pockets. “They’ve jacked a DeVries shunt into her brain. It will be some time before they know if she’ll recover, and to what extent.” As Jani circled, Ulanova kept turning ever so slowly so that she faced her at all times.

  Jani kept talking. Idomeni meeting breaks were short, and she knew she didn’t have much time. “She and I found paper linking Peter to the Helier meetings during which L’araignée was formed. That paper also shows that he met with you during your trips to Exterior Main on Amsun. His meetings with you followed his trips to Helier. Coincidence, I’m sure you’ll say.”

  “I have nothing to say to you.” Ulanova’s voice emerged as a hiss; she turned and walked toward the door.

  “Then you brought Peter home with you,” Jani called after her. “He lacked the skill and experience to act as a Cabinet-level Chief of Staff and it showed, but people laughed it off. Just a case of Anais’s glands getting the better of her, silly woman. But that wasn’t his purpose for being here. As L’araignée’s point man, he needed access to the people the Chief of Staff job would bring him in contact with. He needed to feel out the Merchants’ Associations, the other Ministries. Mark the dangers with red flags and arrange their removal.” Jani watched Ulanova slow to stillness as she spoke. She knew she was right, but she appreciated the reassurance. “Nema was one of the dangers—he promoted Haárin business interests, and some of our trade groups were listening. So Peter tried to set him up as a traitor to his people.”

  Ulanova laughed, a dry, old sound. “My poor Peter did that, did he?” She turned to face Jani, dark eyes shiny with hate. “My poor Peter, whom you killed.”

  “Have you visited your Doc Chief in hospital, Your Excellency? Your poor Peter stove in the back of her head.” Jani pressed a hand to her aching ribs. “When he had a chance to plan, he did all right. With a few tweaks, The Nema Letter would have worked a charm. But when he had to think on his feet he fell back on the tried and true methods of his kind, and that’s where he stumbled. When he realized that I had figured out that The Nema Letter was a fake, he abandoned his attempts to ruin my reputation with the white paper and just tried to have me killed outright.”

  “Your reputation!” Ulanova paused to gain control of herself—her face had reddened alarmingly. “You stole documents, you and my Documents Chief. You forged, you deceived—”

  “With Registry support. We were dealing with suspected fraud, and Dolly Aryton and I do go back a ways.” Jani checked her timepiece. She didn’t have more than a few minutes left. “Funny thing—throughout all this, I found allies I didn’t know I had. After the white paper came out, after the shooting, even after last night, the calls never stopped. Family members asked me to attend this meeting. They’ve asked my advice for months: how to work with the Haárin, how to deal with Cèel, how to function in a Commonwealth that’s starting to blur around the edges. It’s as if I’ve become the ad hoc Exterior Minister. They’re coming to me for this information because they either know they won’t get it from you, or they know they can’t believe what they get. Your old friends don’t trust you anymore.”

  The first quiet ripple broke Ulanova’s still surface. A barely perceptible twitch around the eyes. “No, but they fear me, and fear is much the stronger.”

  “Is it?” Jani leaned against the wall as her back tightened. “If I advise them that your actions pose a threat to the Commonwealth and that they need to shut you down, they may balk at first, but in time the idea will appeal to them. They’re afraid of you, yes, but they fear for themselves more. The pie is shrinking, and it will occur to them that if they cut you out, there will be more for them. So if you keep to your present course, you won’t be fighting me. You’ll be fighting Li and Jorge and Yvette and Gisela and all those other old friends. All I’ll have to do is show them where to slip the knife. What happened to Evan van Reuter could happen to you. Death by gutted home and confiscated fortune and no one answering your calls. And what will L’araignée do when they realize you’re no longer the power they thought you were?”

  The door leading into the embassy flung open. A diplomatic suborn stuck out his head, called “Time,” and slipped back inside, leaving Ulanova standing with her hand to her throat.

  “It won’t be simple, slipping out of the arrangements you’ve made. This water treatment plant fiasco, for example—awarding the short-term contract to the Elyan Haárin will cause you problems. You may have to up your security—I know someone who can advise you in that regard.” Jani walked to the veranda’s garden exit, then paused and turned back. “I’d suggest mending fences with Nema, too. If he takes his place as full Haárin, the colonial Haárin will look to him for guidance. If he broaches the subject of an Haárin enclave, I’d listen to him.” She looked at her right hand—her ring flashed in the sunlight. “You might also let Dathim Naré follow through on that tile project at your Annex.”

  Anais’s face flared anew. “That—he stole from my office!”

  “Did he?” Jani stared at Anais until the woman broke contact. “I’ll see you back at table, Your Excellency.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Tsecha followed ná Feyó back into the meeting room. He could sense many sorts of emotions in the humanish he passed in the hallways. Discomfort. Surprise. Confusion. He understood their reactions. They believe I have shown disloyalty to Shai and through her, to Cèel. Some, such as Li Cao and Anais, rejoiced in this since they believed his behavior would lead to his recall to Shèrá. Others such as his Jani despaired, for the same reason.

  And so it may be. Shai, now grown so mindful of humanish opinion, would retaliate, of that he felt most sure. In the name of the worldskein, she would entone as she condemned him. In defense of order. And so would Cèel support her in her decision, because he hated him so.

  Tsecha lowered into his chair and looked about the room. Odd, to sit in this higher seat—he could see the tops of heads for the first time since his youth, before his ascension to Chief Propitiator. Daès has a bald spot. He bared his teeth at the discovery, but his enjoyment soon abated as less amusing thoughts intruded.

  I should have challenged you before the war, Cèel. At least their animosity would have been well and truly declared. As it was now it felt an unfinished thing, like Dathim’s half-formed shell. And so it would remain, if the fate his Jani feared came to pass. Will Cèel kill me outright? Or would he let Tsecha live in a death of his own devising, a sequestered existence spent knowing that the future that the gods had foretold would never come to pass?

  “I looked for you, nìRau. I thought we should at least confer before this starts up again, seeing as I am your suborn.”

  Tsecha turned to find his Jani standing beside him. He looked into her eyes and joy filled his soul, expelling the despair. “Green as Oà—just as Dathim said!”

  “Not dark enough yet. I have seen Oà, you know.” She looked about the room, her posture tense, as though she watched for something. “I thought ní Dathim might attempt to attend this.”

  “He would not be allowed, nìa. He is not government Haárin.” Tsecha gripped Jani’s chin, turning he
r head so that he could again look into her eyes. Even the fact that they were colored the same as Cèel’s could not diminish his delight. “You should not have hidden them for as long as you did.”

  “I may be sorry I didn’t hide them longer.” She winced and pulled his hand away. “Ouch.”

  “Ouch?” Tsecha slumped more formally. “Ah. Your graze gives you pain. Your inconsequential injury, which is as nothing and may thus be ignored.”

  “I never said it didn’t hurt.” Jani turned her neck one way, then the other, until bones cracked.

  “Young Lescaux died trying to kill you. That is what ní Dathim told me.” Tsecha looked toward Anais’s still-empty chair. The call to return had been given some time ago—why had she not yet come? “If she did not hate you before, she most assuredly hates you now.”

  “Such is of no consequence.”

  Tsecha again regarded his Jani. Her voice sounded odd, as it had during their talk in the garden, days before. Devoid of inflection. Stripped of emotion. The sound of words struck on stone. “Nìa, what have you done?”

  “No more than was necessary.” She looked down at him. “And no less.” She had bent over the table, her hands braced on the edge as though she needed the support. The posture caused the sleeves of her jacket to ride up her arms.

  Tsecha touched the soulcloth encircling Jani’s left wrist. The material felt stiff. “No more. And no less.”

  Jani lifted her hands from the table so that her sleeves slipped down. “Did you and the Elyan Haárin discuss any strategies to try to sway Shai’s opinion away from isolationism?”

  “How you change the subject, nìa, whenever you do not want to answer the question.”

  “At the moment, the answer to my question is more important.”