She thought of Fiella being asked if they’d ever had Dushau guests. The lovable moron would surely name their guests of last night.
Resentfully, she set the bathroom screen on reflect and inspected her streaked face. She muttered, “Well, let them put me on trial. My record’s clean! There’s no conspiracy!”
But that hadn’t protected Jindigar. Hardly able to stand, badly in need of privacy and rest, he’d been dragged out into public and marched off to be deported, his most private nightmare labeled sabotage. He should have gone with Trinarvil! Either way, he was out of her life forever.
Ashamed at her renewed surge of tears, she sniffled and steeled herself to approach the world again, suspecting it would take all that was in her—and there wasn’t much left after the harrowing events of yesterday, little sleep last night, and some skipped meals. Low blood sugar. Must eat something.
Back in her office, she punched up some soup and nntri-crackers, and some fish for Imp. She swallowed the food without tasting, but gradually she began to think again.
There was a frightened, panicky thumping in her chest telling her to run for her life. And there was a rational adult saying that was silly. Yet what were her options?
She had friends she could call, invite herself to be their guests. But what kind of friend would that make her, implicating them? She had enough credit to buy passage back to Pesht, to inflict herself on her family. She could imagine her father’s face when, after more than ten years of ignoring his advice about career, she came running home at first sign of difficulty. No. She was a better Zavaronne than that.
She had to get hold of herself. It was very late. When she left, the outer office was deserted—unusual, but not unheard of. She decided to walk home, and ended up pacing the city streets so abstracted she lost her way and had to use her leptolizer to find her apartment building.
Fiella was relieved to see her at last, and plied her with food and comforts, and even found some piol food for Imp. Krinata hadn’t seen a news brief since Kamminth’s Oliat had returned, so she had Fiella compile all items to do with the critical shortages, inflation, riots and Dushau. It boiled down to nearly an hour of fast coverage.
She was shocked to hear that the Binwons’ three colonized worlds were accused of withholding raw protein shipments due by contract, claiming the foodstuffs didn’t exist. There were shots of warehouses jammed with shipping containers, purportedly filled with the nonexistent protein. Imperial troops were being mustered and sent to that frontier, a warning that hoarding would not be permitted during this crisis.
One whole continent on Treptes, the home world of a gentle, flying folk, had a total power outage that lasted through their summer season. Refugees were streaming off that blistering, uninhabitable desert. Looting and mugging had broken out, utterly against the Treptes nature. It was sparked by sheer desperation. The world’s spaceports were closed to emigration by order of the Emperor.
On the more cosmopolitan Ramussin, where many species had colonized, and more had taken up residence, an anti-Dushau riot had broken out just after the Emperor’s broadcast. It was virtually destroying a major residential district of the capital. Dushau sympathizers were being publicly executed in gruesome ways, along with a few Dushau.
“Krinata, do you really want to see those details?” asked Fiella.
“No, no, that’s enough. I don’t need any more nightmares.”
She forced herself to go through a normal evening routine, and set her sleep field for the entire night.
The next three days, she walked through her work like a zombie. They turned out the Margo prospectus, and Krinata presented it at the Colonization Board meeting. It was approved without comment, and posted so shopping colonists could sign up. But Krinata felt the tense reserve among her colleagues. If she was in trouble, so were they—so was all of Survey, for they worked intimately with the Oliat teams.
People like Clorinda Dover made haste to adopt an anti-Dushau patter, saying they’d always distrusted the Immortals. In fact, the misnomer, immortal, became a common epithet countering the slur most people imagined Dushau meant by terming them Ephemerals. Dushau might live thousands of years, but they were very mortal. Krinata had only to think of the deaths she’d seen to know that.
Krinata tried copying the new style, but choked on the words, and despised her cowardice. She was no longer hiding from the obvious troubles of the Empire, but she couldn’t betray her friends and herself for political expediency. All they could do to her was fire her, and there were other jobs. Even in such an economy, there were other jobs.
When she’d reached that emotional state on the second day, she ordered the mess in her storeroom—which had also been raped—and her bathroom cleaned up. Then she sent the bill to the Imperial Guards.
She was feeling pleased with herself at last when she got home that night, firmly telling herself that Jindigar and the others were halfway to Dushaun by now and it was time to put that part of her life behind her. But behind her eyelids, she was tormented with images of Jindigar convulsed in suffering. Mother always told me I had too vivid an imagination for my own good. She was right. Then Fiella told her the bad news.
Some Sentient she didn’t know had been questioning her about Jindigar’s visit, and what use the Dushau had made of her. Krinata had the probe played back and determined that the person behind sabotaging Finemar was probably still after Jindigar, perhaps trying to steal the Raichmat report Jindigar had worked on here that night. She still couldn’t believe it was the Emperor. But it didn’t matter, Jindigar had used Arlai to assemble his data. Fiella knew nothing.
On the third day, she felt dragged out by a headache and deep muscle ache from too much tension. From her office she evoked Finemar. hoping the Sentient was back on-line after being repaired, and that the infirmary was operating again. But a strange Sentient answered, introduced herself and asked, “How may I serve?”
Krinata hunched on the edge of her chair, forgetting her headache. “What happened to Finemar?”
“I’ve replaced him.”
“But where is he?”
“I don’t know. On some other assignment, I presume. May I help you? There are other patients.”
“Uh… no, thank you. It’s not important.”
The screaming fear was back. There’d been nothing wrong with Finemar that he couldn’t have fixed by himself. She left early, thought of going to a theater or concert, knowing she needed to relax. At home, all she had was Imp for company, and Fiella. But she couldn’t make herself part of the throng streaming into the amphitheater for a classical Nopne concert. It resembled the riots she’d viewed too regularly lately.
She didn’t want to talk to any of her friends, couldn’t bear to hear the anti-Dushau slogans on their lips. They weren’t friends actually, she realized. It’d been over a year since she’d had a serious lover, and the rest were just acquaintances, sharing interests but not attitudes.
Restlessly, she walked home, buying small things to nibble on as she went, trying to tempt her lagging appetite with delicacies from far planets. There were no shortages in the Allegiancy capital yet, though prices were soaring.
Even the long walk didn’t get her tired enough to sleep without help. But she was becoming addicted to the field, and deliberately left it off that night. Around midnight, when she’d tossed for the thousandth time to shake a ghost nightmare in which members of her Oliat were dying all about her, her senses winking out as if somebody were putting out her eyes and ears with a hot poker, the screen in her room turned from mirror into gleaming starship bridge. In the center paced Arlai. He turned as the screen focused, and looked at Krinata lying in bed.
“Ah, Krinata, at last. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
She sat up, wondering where he was calling from, but she said with asperity, “I’d have expected better manners from the Sentient of a prince!”
Arlai made a deep obeisance, uttering formal apologies, and kept his eyes down as he sp
oke. “Onerir Control is trying to isolate me in orbit, and I can’t reach Jindigar—they’ve removed my telemband from him. Krinata, I need help!”
She shoved aside her lecture on overriding household closures and waking people up. Grabbing a robe, she went to the screen. “I thought you’d be nearing Dushaun by now.”
“No, Jindigar is being held on Onerir. I’ve just found out where, only I can’t reach him. And now… now,” he said, gulping visibly, “I’ve found that Finemar has been murdered!”
“Murdered!”
“Well, disconnected. But to me it feels like murder. His whole personality is gone forever. He’s being broken down for parts, and his centrals are being discarded. All by order of the Emperor. Krinata, it was the Emperor who ordered Finemar reprogrammed to begin with. I think he wanted Dinai and Seum debilitated by their treatment, so he could more easily wring confessions out of them.”
“Whoa! Slow down, Arlai. Don’t let your imagination run wild.” But she shivered at his words. “How could they confess to a plot they never even heard of?”
Arlai sat down, letting the screen fill with his head and shoulders. “I think the Emperor needs an actual Dushau confession to nail all this down tight. He hasn’t a single shred of evidence despite all his investigating. He’s just letting people think that investigations mean guilt.”
“How do you know all this?”
Arlai smiled hesitantly. “I’m one of the oldest Sentients operating. I’m pretty good at my job. If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask Jindigar.”
She assessed the simulacrum’s demeanor as if he were a living being, knowing they went to some pains to master nonverbal communication forms. “You’re loyal to him, aren’t you?” Many Sentients were owned by people, and regarded them simply as employers, not personal friends. She’d won Fiella’s friendship after many years, and she thought she recognized that attitude in Arlai.
“Sentients are supposed to be loyal to their owners,” answered Arlai.
She started to say that he seemed more than a Sentient, more even than a worried friend. But he cut her off.
“Krinata, I’m not Kitholpen, to be able to secure a line with diplomatic immunity. I’ve done my best, but…”
Secured line? The situation must be dire. “Where did you say Jindigar was being held?”
“I know he trusted you,” said Arlai as if to convince himself. •‘He left you the piol. He was telling me by that just how much he trusted you to help. Krinata, I didn’t call you because a Sentient has been murd—disconnected. I called because I just found out that Dinai and Seum have died, in the psychiatric ward of Onerir General Hospital, where Jindigar is being held. Official cause of death: Dushau insanity. I don’t believe that, but I can’t prove it. They removed my telembands from them before they died. Jindigar’s still alive according to the Attending Sentient. Krinata, if isolating him like this after such a loss isn’t torture, what is? After they wring a confession out of him, the Emperor plans a public humiliation and execution of a Dushau prince.”
She sat in shock, the nightmare coming back full force as rationality shrieked, Pay attention! This is real! The Emperor
Had lied to the Allegiancy, and to his own sworn prince. That was what was real and had to be dealt with.
“I’ll get him out,” she said, hearing her own voice as if it belonged to someone else.
Arlai slumped, and held one hand to his eyes as if to forestall weeping. “I knew you’d help.”
Krinata’s resolve hardened. She had failed to warn the three that they were being spied upon in her office. She had seduced Jindigar into that replay of Taaryesh’s death that had been called sabotage. She had stood by and let Jindigar and the others be hauled out of her office, too weak to defend themselves. It might not be her fault, but it was her responsibility. Besides, Jindigar was special. If somewhere, some Dushau really was plotting against the Allegiancy, well, every species had its criminals.
She was suddenly sick of sitting on her hands waiting for the Emperor’s investigators to swing an ax at her professional neck. She’d seen how they were trumping up false evidence, and Jindigar’s “sabotage” had occurred in her office. It was a matter of record that she’d openly resisted imperial troops. Never mind that she was within her rights. If they wanted to get her, they could. And she was sure that they did. There was no point in playing innocent while the Emperor tortured Jindigar into betraying everything he believed in, murdered him, and then came after her as his primary contact on Onerir. If they were going to survive until the Kings put a stop to this, she had to act now.
She went to her wardrobe and summoned Fiella to assemble her toughest hiking clothes and assorted necessities for a long trip, packing it all in a lightcase. Then she ordered up her best court regalia and began dressing to impress.
Arlai said, “I’m stuck up here in orbit, Krinata, but I have developed contacts, and I can sometimes control scurries and other out-runners by fast-talking their Sentients. I’ll follow you, and I’ll help wherever I can.”
She poked her nose around the door of her dressing room and said, “You’re great, Arlai. But I hope I won’t need any help.”
She came out into the room and Arlai stood, nodding appreciatively. “Very, very impressive, Lady Zavaronne.” He redressed his image in courtwear of the lowliest rank, unadorned, and made a deep obeisance.
She looked around at her possessions. At least a year’s salary’s worth of electronics, several years’ salary invested in her library, the furnishings, mementos of her parents. “Fiella, if I don’t come back, turn all of my personal effects over to Allassi Messentari. Tell her to save anything she thinks might have sentimental value, and sell everything else and keep the money. Transfer my accounts to her name after you settle my debts.”
She took her formal leptolizer, and her old one. And she grabbed a pocketful of energy cakes to eat on the way. “Ready, Arlai?”
“Always, Krinata. But Onerir Control is trying very hard to reprogram me. I don’t know how much time I have.”
There was no distress in Arlai’s voice now, but the new threat sent her racing for the carpark.
It was a long ride around the curve of the planet to Onerir General Hospital, renowned for catering to almost every one of the several hundred species. The hospital was located on an island amid a placid inland sea. Great grassy hills rolled up to short, sprawling buildings dotted with functional towers. The installation stretched far underground as well as onto the beaches for aquatics.
Here, instead of nearing dawn, it was just approaching midnight. Arlai was now directly overhead, speaking to her easily through her own leptolizer.
She had been thinking. “Arlai, I don’t mean to insult you, but could you—at my command, of course—forge the imperial seal and project me an order saying I’m to remove Jindigar from this place and take him to the Emperor?”
She watched the Sentient on the screen of the car. Chewing one lip, he inspected her anew. The piol was sleeping in her lap—on a thick pad this time, so as not to ruin her outfit. Otherwise, she was Lady Zavaronne.
“Jindigar trusted you. Yes, Krinata, I could do that. I could even create the Emperor’s image giving the order.”
“Splendid!” she said, not even thinking about what this implied regarding Dushau-shipboard Sentients, or Dushau attitudes toward Allegiancy law. “Do it and squirt it into my leptolizer. I’m going to pull off a show that will go down in history.”
While he was creating his masterpiece, Arlai asked quietly, “Have you thought what you’re going to do after you get him out? You certainly aren’t going to take him to the Emperor, are you? I expect he’s hardly able to walk by now.”
She in fact hadn’t thought. She’d had some vague idea of hiding him in her apartment. But if they were cracking Arlai, they could easily crack Fiella’s privacy program.
Arlai added. “Since we’re breaking a few laws, I could send my shuttle down for you. There’s enough space on th
at lawn to land and take off without hurting anyone. I’m that good with my shuttles.”
With Jindigar aboard to issue the orders, Arlai could take them anywhere.
“Yes. I think that would be best.”
She took her lightcase—it looked like the sort of thing a busy executive would carry—and thoughtfully but sadly turned Imp loose on the lawn. She couldn’t carry him into a hospital, and she couldn’t leave him trapped in the car she was abandoning. He could probably grow up happily fishing in the lakes and cadging nibbles from the groundskeepers. Then she set off, head high, marching with a confident swagger, psyching herself into the mindset of an official responsible directly to the Emperor.
The front-office entry was a sheer transparent wall overlooking a lake surrounded by tall trees. Inside, trees from other planetary habitats scraped the vaulted ceiling. Interview stations were set among groves where seating blended into the forested motif. She chose the centermost station and presented herself briskly, adding, “This is urgent. The Emperor will brook no delays.”
Before long, a robed Camidan, twice her height and covered with rustling scalelike excrescences, presented himself. “My Lady, I am Director Ithrenth. I would serve my Emperor. Will you step into my office?”
His voice was high but somehow sonorous, too. Like a reed orchestra. Krinata had never dealt personally with a Camidan before, and hoped what she’d read and gathered from fiction would serve her.
His office was sumptuous, decorated for a human or Lehiroh. The view of the stars through the transparent ceiling was awesome. Somewhere up there, Krinata knew, Arlai lay vulnerable in orbit, trying to follow her movements.
Ithrenth took up a stance beside a large wallscreen. “I’m sure you realize this is hardly routine. We have direct imperial orders regarding the patient you wish to remove.”
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