Law of Survival

by Kristine Smith

  “Until Cèel chooses a replacement, yes.”

  Tsecha took one breath, then another. Haárin breath, inhaled by an outcast. He stood, slipped off the overrobe of his office, and draped it across Shai’s desk. “I look forward to sitting at table with you in many meetings to come, Shai. You will wish you had killed me, and truly.” Then he left before she could pronounce more of Cèel’s anger, and returned to his rooms to claim the few objects he wished to keep.

  He crossed the veranda for the last time as the humanish sun ascended to prime. Walked across the lawns. Disappeared into the trees. He had packed his few possessions in a carryall that he wore slung across his shoulders, in imitation of Feyó’s suborns. He had changed his clothes, trading his crisp off-white for dark and worn. Black shirt. Brown trousers. Black boots. He would obtain colors as soon as he could, dress in blues and greens and oranges. But for now, he walked as shadow.

  They awaited him in the lane, Beyva and the rest, welcoming him with smiles and greetings and laughter. They herded around him and pushed him onward, as the sea pushed the wave, toward the house in which they had gathered a seeming age of evenings ago. Dathim stood in the entry, brightly clothed, ax-hammer gripped in his hand.

  “We have been waiting for you, Tsecha. We, the embassy’s blade!” Dathim stepped aside and gestured for him to step forward. “Your house has been waiting for you.”

  Tsecha stopped short. “Your house, ní Dathim.”

  “No, this is not my house, ní Tsecha. Mine is that one.” Dathim pointed to a smaller dwelling at the far end of the lane, near the base of the grassy rise. “This house”—he patted the side of the entry—“this house has been empty for some time. I have labored to prepare it for he who would live here.”

  Tsecha took a step forward. Another. He touched the entry stonework, and pondered what he knew of this place. A place blessed by annihilation and adorned with the dunes of Knevçet Shèràa. A place of meeting, and rebellion, and change.

  “It is a good house, and truly.” He touched the reliquary, muttered a prayer, and walked inside.

  CHAPTER 34

  “Do you know who’s going to be at this thing, besides the Commonwealth Cup semifinalists? Everybody. Absolutely everybody!” Angevin dug through the pile of gowns on Jani’s bed, flinging about expensive fabrics like used dispos.

  “I already know what I’m going to wear. Bought it last week. Fits perfectly.” Jani sat on the floor in front of the dresser, well out of range of flying dresses. “You’ve had a week to prep for this. I kept telling you, ‘Go shopping.’”

  “When? This place has been a zoo ever since the conclave.” Angevin stretched out a gold column gown on the bed and eyed it skeptically. “First, the move.” She gestured vaguely around the larger bedroom, with its tenth-floor cityscape view. “Security in and out all week, installing things. Then the workload. You get any more two-hundred-page Cabinet contracts, you’re going to have to charter someone to close out your books at the end of the year.”

  “I planned on doing that anyway.” Jani walked to her closet and took out her own choice for the evening. “Dolly recommended a firm that Registry uses. They cost a mint, and they’re reputed to be real pains in the ass. Chances are good that they’re as honest as you’ll get in Chicago and no one could persuade them to set me up on an embezzlement charge.”

  “You’re worried about that?” Angevin dragged her gown to one side so Jani would have room to set out her own outfit.

  “Worried, no. Ever mindful, yes.” Jani took her clothes from their wrappings and laid them out. “The old-fashioned frame-up seems to be the standard way of doing business in this city, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to make it easy for somebody.” She swept the sea-blue sari across the silvery pants and top. “What do you think?”

  “I could cry.” Angevin whimpered as she stroked the turquoise silk. “How are you going to wear your eyes?”

  Jani grinned. The question had become a point of fun between them, as well as a way to help everyone, herself included, adjust to the change. “Clothed, I think. It’s not an official government function and I don’t feel like being gawped at. Not that I may not be anyway, but why ask for it?” She walked to the dresser and picked through the multitude of packages her mother had brought her from Acadia. “I need to decide on jewelry,” she said as she liberated a huge padded bag from the collection.

  Angevin gasped as Jani unfastened the bag’s flaps and opened it like a book, revealing row after row of gems and metal. Platinum earrings and rings. Gold bracelets. “My God!” She held up a necklace of hammered gold discs. “When are you supposed to wear all this?”

  “My wedding day. All in one shot.” Jani chuckled at Angevin’s shocked look. “You never heard the term ‘more metal than an Acadian wedding’? A bride was supposed to wear her dowry on her back. You should see the daughters from wealthy families—they can barely move for the gold. I remember when I was little, seeing holos of a bride who had to be floated up to the altar on a skimdolly.” She examined a pair of aquamarine teardrop earrings. “Course, this stuff isn’t worth near as much now as it was when the tradition began. But it’s bright and shiny and custom dictates that it matters.”

  They both started as the comport buzzer blatted; Angevin glowered at the extension unit on Jani’s end table. “Let Steve get it. If I never again see another begging, pleading face on a display, I’ll survive quite happily.” She hefted a gold-link bracelet and mouthed a wow. “Isn’t it bad luck to wear this stuff before your wedding or something?”

  “Oh, I think all bets are off where that’s concerned. When your folks turn it over to you, it becomes yours to do with as you please.” Jani perused her nuptial stockpile with a hand pressed to her forehead. “I think I’m going to make do with about five percent of this, so Maman can ask me why I’m not wearing anything.” She set aside the aquamarine earrings, the huge stones set in platinum, and the matching collar-like necklace. Then she added an array of gold and platinum bracelets because she liked how the wide bands covered the à lérine scars on her forearms.

  “You’re going to look so exotic, and I’m going to look like I should be parking skimmers.” Angevin glared at the door as a knock sounded. She bundled her dress over her arm and hurried to answer it.

  “Hey, don’t leave this stuff—!” Jani stopped in mid-sentence when she saw Steve standing in the doorway, an anxious-looking Lt. Pullman at his back.

  “That was Val on the com.” Steve grinned. “You need to get to Neoclona right away.”

  “We started picking up the increased neuronal activity as soon as we flushed out the regen solutions and unjacked the shunt.” Dr. Wismuth, one of the many neurologists Jani had come to know, was short and round and bobbed like a happy balloon down the hall ahead of her. “Then we began what we call our systems checks—somatic, visual, auditory, etc….” She pushed the door to the room aside before it hada chance to open completely, ignoring the warning buzzer. “We’ve noted some issues with visual acuity that may or may not repair themselves. Her speech is slurred. She remembers nothing that happened the day of the assault”—Wismuth’s bubbling ebbed—“which isn’t entirely bad.” She beckoned for Jani to follow her into the darkened room. “Her head is still restrained, and will be for a few more days. She’s still swaddled. We don’t normally allow visitors other than immediate family at this stage, but I know you’ve been here every day since she arrived, and Val insisted that you had a right to know.” She stepped aside, allowing Jani a clear path to the bed.

  The headboard blinked and fluttered less now that the shunt had been removed and Roni had regained some level of consciousness. Her hands moved constantly, fingers first flexing, then bending, then straightening as though she pointed. The part of her face that was visible held a tense, knitted expression, as though she suffered a severe headache. Considering what Jani recalled of her own post-shunt return to consciousness, she probably did.

  Then Roni’s eyes, mere slit
s due to the swelling caused by the shunt, opened. She moved her mouth like an infant trying to vocalize. The rate of her hand movements increased. The psychotropic headboard blinked and fluttered more rapidly. Jani hung back, her heart in her throat and her hands clenched in her pockets, until Dr. Wismuth pushed her forward. “You need to move up—all you are is a blur from this distance.”

  “Sorry.” Jani stepped closer to the bed, and hoped Wismuth couldn’t see the tears running down her cheeks. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

  “Jah—” Roni’s agitated movements slowed. A corner of her mouth twitched. “’lo.”

  “Hello.” Jani coughed to loosen her tightening chest. “I won’t ask how you feel. I know how you feel.”

  Roni blew out a very weak snort. “Yah. Head hur’. Stup’ shunt.” Her mouth curved a little more. “Mom here. Da. Helluva way to ge’ a vis-it.” Her hand movements increased again. “Thinkin’. Some’en wron’. Luu-sheen. Peeth-aah. Bot’ blon.’ Col’ eyes.” Then the motion slowed again. Her face relaxed as though she slept.

  Wismuth tugged on Jani’s sleeve. “Does that mean something? She’s been repeating it for hours.”

  Jani nodded. “It concerns the matter we were working on the day of the assault. We were trying to determine an identity with a very sparse physical description.”

  “Oh, this is good, yes!” Wismuth bustled toward the door, barely avoiding a collision with Val in the entry.

  “Wiz is wearing her note-taking face.” Val sauntered up to Jani and wrapped his arms around her. He wore a green plaid shirt—he pressed her face to his shoulder and patted the back of her head. “It’s absorbent—go ahead.”

  Jani hugged him back. “If I had—”

  “I don’t want to hear any ifs out of you, remember?” Val pushed her back so he could look her in the face. “She can hear us. If you’re going to beat yourself up, we need to go someplace else.” He glanced at the bed. “We should leave anyway—that woman needs her rest.”

  They walked into the hall, arms around each other’s waists. Jani blinked as the bright lights struck her and she felt the old familiar tightening of her eyefilms. “What’s the prognosis?”

  “At this stage, a hell of a lot better than average.” Val hugged her again. “I won’t go into gory details, but judging from the severity of that blow she suffered, she’s lucky she stayed alive long enough to get here.”

  “Lucky I finally found her, you mean.”

  “Jan, we still know very little about what happened that night, and until we do, I wish you’d stick the guilt back in the box.” Val slowed to a stop, gripped Jani by the shoulders, and turned her to face him. “She’s alive. She’s lucid. The vast majority of her responses to stimuli fall within normal variation. She suffered less serious cerebral damage than you did. You were out for almost five weeks, not five days, and look how you turned out. Given time, she stands a great chance of making a full and complete recovery.”

  Jani exhaled with a shudder. “Her personality—”

  “Initial signs look good, but we won’t know the fine detail for weeks.” Val shook her gently, in deference to her mending collarbone. “Let’s discuss some items that we do know. You saved her life. You could have died in the process. The two things that saved you both are that she’s a very lucky young woman and you’re a medical wonder.” His green-brown eyes shone with a hard light. “Give yourself a break, for once in your damned life. Not everything that happens to everyone you know is your fault.” He hugged her again, and they continued walking. “You going to the party tonight?”

  Jani shrugged. “I guess.”

  Val nodded with medical finality. “You better. You should have a great time, a wonderful time.” He led her to the lift that would take her down to the garages. “Then tomorrow morning, you should come back here and tell Roni all about it. It’ll do you both good.” He shoved her gently into the open cabin, in which Pullman already stood waiting. “Now go.”

  Pullman escorted her to the VIP level. He looked the gentle giant in his dress blue-greys; it was hard to believe he carried enough firepower on his person to flatten a fair-sized building. “Good news, ma’am?” He popped the rear gullwing of Jani’s latest conveyance, a dark red four-door.

  “Yes. Good news.” Jani slipped into the backseat, and smiled up at Pullman as he closed her in. She’s alive…she’s lucid…we talked a little. I’ll tell her all about the party in the morning. Yes, she would. Oh yes, she would.

  “Janila, look at all this food!” Jamira held her plate in front of her like a barrier. Then she edged closer to Jani and dropped her voice. “Can you eat any of it?”

  “Some of it, Maman.” Jani looked over the banked tables, a stationary feast moored by goldware and crystal and candlesticks the size of Pullman’s forearms. “I just don’t know where to start.”

  “Allow me.” John Shroud took the plate from Jani’s hands and filled it. He wore a smart evening suit in pearl grey and had filmed his eyes to match; the tempered light of the ballroom softened his spectral edge. “Good evening, Mère Kilian,” he rumbled with a host’s smile. “Are you having a good time?”

  “Yes, Dr. Shroud.” Jamira’s smile stayed true, her truce with John still in place. “How Declan and I danced. Such wonderful music, waltzes and à deux. Now he is in the other room, watching football holos and stuttering like a young boy in the presence of Le Vieux Rouge.”

  John looked back at Jani, near-invisible eyebrows arched in question.

  “The Old Red. Acadia Central United’s nickname.” Jani took the plate from him and stared at the numerous tiny servings of meats, breads, and hors d’oeuvres. “You expect me to eat this tonight?”

  “It’s just a little of everything.”

  “I think everything is the key word.” Jani used a two-pronged fork to skewer a shrimp the size of her finger as she surveyed the huge ballroom. “I saw the PM a little while ago.”

  “She made one pass through the room and left. Anais sent her regrets this morning. The people I spoke with who asked about you seemed eager to talk to you. The usual Ministers, along with business leaders anxious about the Haárin influx. So in answer to your unasked question, no, I don’t believe there’s anyone here you need to avoid.” John looked down at her and smiled. “See, I can be useful.”

  “I never said you couldn’t.” Jani stuffed the shrimp in her mouth to forestall further conversation, then turned as a familiar babble of voices sounded from behind.

  “My dear, you look lovely!” Jamira handed Steve her plate so she could offer silent applause for Angevin’s golden gown.

  “Oh, so do you!” Angevin touched the gold-trimmed edge of Jamira’s fuchsia sari, which flowed over trousers and top of muted gold. Behind her, Steve stood in his basic black evening suit and juggled his and Jamira’s plates. He glanced at Jani and rolled his eyes as Angevin and Jamira fell into animated conversation.

  Jani felt a hand touch her shoulder, and turned to find John beckoning for her to follow him. They walked to a small pedestal table near the dividing line between the dining and the dancing. Couples in rainbow eveningwear swirled past as the music swelled, forcing them to bend close together so they could hear one another.

  John had gotten a drink, something caramel-colored and potent-looking, like the bourbon Evan van Reuter used to imbibe incessantly. “I assume your folks are staying?”

  “Do they have a choice?” Jani looked out over the Commerce Ministry ballroom, an immense space with high tiered ceilings, chandeliers, and walls of french doors leading out to terraces and gardens. “They can’t go back to Acadia. I think they realized that the day they bugged out. Maman brought my dowry jewelry and all her family holos and mementoes. Papa brought most of his tools and handheld instruments. Niall has them in his sights—they’ve got round-the-clock protection although I don’t think they realize what that means.” She studied the milling diners and dancers, on the lookout for the waiter who strayed near, the gowned woman who asked for the time. Wa
tchers all, guardians all, shadows all, courtesy of Niall Pierce, who currently resided in a command center in a nether part of the building and rode herd over a score of Cabinet and Family security forces. “I never thanked you for taking care of them.”

  “No need.” John bent closer, until their arms touched. “You ask—I comply. Or haven’t you figured that out yet?” His voice seemed to emerge from the very air surrounding them. “That’s all you have to do. Just ask. It’s very simple.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Of course it is. All it takes is practice. ‘John, do this. John, attend.’”

  John, take over my life. Jani kept that thought to herself. John was better at that sort of argument than she. The only sure way to fend him off would be to say something cutting, and she didn’t want to spoil the evening that way. The music, the lights, and the color combined to make a storybook setting and she wanted to enjoy it, if only as a spectator.

  She let her gaze drift over the heads of the dancers, to the view through the french doors. The night air chilled, but assorted weather barriers had made the terrace a haven for those in search of respite from the noise and glitter. At first, she ignored the distant glimmer of white as it drew near the windows, taking it for a guest returning from a wander among the trees. Then the figure walked into the full blaze of light that flooded the terrace, and her heart skipped.

  Lucien stepped up to the doors and scanned the interior scene. He wore drop-dead whites, the gold shoulder boards and looped braids snagging the light and slicing it into metallic rainbows. He stiffened like a hunting dog on point when he spotted her, but instead of entering the ballroom immediately, he held back. One hand on the door catch, eyes on her, like the soldier in her painting, he stood still and straight and awaited his mistress’s pleasure.

  After a moment that seemed like nothing and like forever, Jani smiled. Only then did Lucien open the door. He strode the perimeter of the ballroom, chased by stares, the light of the chandeliers shimmering off his silvery head.