Code of Conduct

by Kristine Smith

  Steve emitted a strangled groan. Betha kept kneading the pillow.

  “No one knew about you and Lyssa,” Jani finally said. The sound of tearing interrupted her. “Months and months go by, coworkers all around you getting the hook,” she continued, as Betha surveyed the ripped pillow in mute dismay. “Yet you manage to scoot through the barrage unscathed. Pretty good maneuvering for a drone, considering anybody with any sense would have swept you out at first pass.”

  “So Betha weren’t the Lady’s official dexxie.” Steve, who no longer appeared quite so smug, sat up straight. “He were shipped out to a colonial post during the height of the troubles. No one’s heard from him since.” He pointed to Betha. “What did you expect her to do—turn herself in?”

  “None of the paper you did for Lyssa went through Durian’s office, did it?” Jani asked the sick-looking Betha. “At first, it was just a few small favors. She was, after all, the Lady. Maybe your ticket out of the Doc pool. Then, finally, after the favors began piling up, getting more and more complicated, more and more risky, you asked her what the hell was going on?”

  “Hey,” Steve shouted, “I brought her here as a favor—!”

  “Be quiet.” Jani turned back to Betha, who still clutched the ripped pillow. “That’s when she threatened you. Told you what she’d do to you if you didn’t keep your mouth shut?”

  After a long silence, Betha spoke. “If you already know so much, why ask me? If you already know what happened, what chance do I have?”

  More of one than I did, when Riky Neumann cornered me. “You filled out the travel docs for Nueva Madrid?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t register them or obtain Durian’s approval?”

  “No. She asked me not to. She said she’d handle it.”

  Steve buried his head in his hands.

  “In the meantime,” Jani said, “Lyssa went through her regular dexxie for another set of travels docs, the ones her husband and her staff knew about. Those were the envoy papers. Same times, same location, different purpose.”

  “Yes,” Betha said. “She said if I told anyone, she’d make sure I got deregistered. At the very least.”

  Steve cleared his throat. “You think the Lady were sick? Getting some type of medical treatment she didn’t want the Minister to know about?”

  Jani jerked her head in Betha’s direction. “She vetted the return-trip papers, I assume. I think you should ask her.”

  “I don’t think it could have been anything serious.” Betha started picking out the pillow stuffing and worked the feathery foam between her fingers. “I don’t have much experience in medical records—just my school courses—but I never saw any patient copies of referral documents, or codes for consultation summaries.” She shrugged weakly. “Besides, she never seemed nervous or anything. Once, she even said she were taking a vacation. ‘Going surfing, Betha’ she told me. ‘Going to learn how to surf.’”

  Jani felt the clammy grip of nausea that had nothing to do with food. She might not yet know who killed Lyssa or why. But she knew how. “How many times did she mention surfing?”

  “Two, three times.”

  Steve ignited another nicstick. “Does that mean something?”

  “Maybe.” Jani paused. “How much room do we have to maneuver? Any audits coming up in the foreseeable future?”

  Steve moaned as Betha worked to her feet. “The general audit starts next week,” she said.

  “Next week!” Jani smothered a groan herself. “Seven days until your paper house gets blown down by the big bad wolf.” She worked her neck, listened to the bones crackle. When general auditors fired, they seldom missed. She’d have to move pretty quickly if she wanted to help those two morons remain in the Registry. And out of prison. “That leaves us with lots of ground to cover in a very short time.” She rose as quickly as her aching back would allow. “Leave me alone to think. I’ll track you down when I need you.”

  “No reason why we should help you,” Steve huffed, hands in pockets, slouch in full, sagging bloom.

  “Felony documents fraud,” Jani said, pointing to Betha, “and accessory after the fact,” she added as she gripped his sleeve and pulled him toward the door. “Besides, you’d rather have to do for me than anyone else you’ve ever known.” She met Betha’s not again look head-on. “Well, if you had said no in the first place, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  Betha fingered the worn edge of her jacket cuff. “How? She were the Lady. I’m just…” She pulled a thread from the frayed edge. Her shoulders slumped. “How could I say no?”

  Same way I did. No, Colonel Neumann, sir, I will not sign off on your faked medical files. No, Colonel Neumann, sir, I will not fill out the transfer justification for your faked files.

  No. No. It did get through, eventually. One way or another. Jani escorted the somber duo to the lift and smiled at them as they boarded the car. Steve looked away, while Betha stared at her like a trapped animal.

  The stare jarred Jani. She remained in the hall as the lift doors closed, trying to punch holes in memories that insisted on forcing their way to the surface. Gawky, sloppy Betha. Take away the bad makeup and trim the hair into a Service burr, you’ve got Yolan. Corporal Yolan Cray, who would have been—Jani did a quick mental calculation—thirty-seven Common years old now.

  She returned to her suite. After clearing away pillow remnants, she closed herself in her office, righted Lucien’s card, and stared at it. Were you trying to tell me something, Lieutenant? Sailracing. Before the self-propelled sailboards had been perfected, the racers had to rely on Mother Nature. Windsurfing, they had called it then. So Lady Lyssa learned to surf. Learned to ride what Jani and her fellow augies had called, in grandiosity born of fear, the solar wind. Learned to smell berries the year ’round, hear colors, see sound, feel the blood flow in your veins. Learned that no matter what, dying was for others, but never for you.

  She freed the gossip holozine from its hiding place in her duffel. Along with the childhood pictures, wedding portraits, and images of the great lady in decline, some ambitious soul had constructed a timetable of the last few years of Lyssa van Reuter’s life. Jani studied the timeline. Public battles with Evan and other minor embarrassments filled in the gaps between the major blowups. Skimmer accidents, disappearances, extended visits to sanitariums run by unaffiliated meds. But never a Neoclona or Service facility. Never someplace where they could tell.

  Every few months, another crash. Another disconnect with reality. It happened sometimes, with those who had been augmented when they shouldn’t have been. So she started taking herself to Nueva twice a year to have her brain reset. Had the flashing lights shoved in her face and went bye-bye. Jani had hated take-down—a minute of fast-forward hallucinations followed by a week of “what’s my name” loginess. No more for me. Not ever.

  Any augmented vet who worked for Interior had to be checked out every six months, with at least one precautionary take-down per year. Evan had said so himself. He was aware of the pattern—you’d think the timing of Lyssa’s trips would have sounded a chord with him. Then again, maybe not. Lyssa wasn’t Service—any rumor that she had been augmented would have been laughed off the newssheets.

  Oh my Lady. Why? To understand what Martin went through, why he did the things he did? Or was it to torture herself, punish herself for allowing it to happen? Jani poked absently at her numb left hand, ran a live finger over dead flesh and bone. I wish I could have met you first, Lyssa. She could have told her it wouldn’t help. Nothing did.

  CHAPTER 13

  “NìRau?”

  Tsecha suppressed a fatigued sigh as he lowered into his chair. Since before sunrise he had stood, still and straight, praying before the embassy’s dominant altar. Now he could see the sun through one of the room’s narrow windows, risen three-quarters to prime, its reflection off the lake a painful jolt to his long-closed eyes.

  “NìRau? It is the Exterior Minister. Ulanova.” Head held high in r
espect, Sànalàn, Tsecha’s religious suborn, stepped into his sight line, a needle of light against the black stone of the altar wall. “She has been scheduled, nìRau, but we may send her away, as before—”

  “No, nìa.” Tsecha used the gentlest refusal his tongue and posture would allow, but the young female’s reaction showed that even so she resented the interruption. Her shoulders rounded, her head tilted forward. Even then, she stood taller than he, fine-boned as a marsh bird, her skin the sand gold of her body mother, a central plains-dwelling Sìah. “This day, I must see her, I think.” Tsecha continued to watch as his suborn’s shoulders slumped farther. “You do not like her, nìa?”

  “She is as a wall.” Sànalàn now straightened, raising her cupped right hand chest high in question. “How can one promote order who withholds so much?”

  “Such withholding is much admired by humanish.”

  “Ah.” The narrow shoulders relaxed, the arm dropped to the side. “Humanish admire odd things.” Sànalàn turned to lead Tsecha out of the altar room. “Which explains much, and truly.”

  Tsecha held back argument and followed his suborn. She wore a floor-grazing overrobe of bronze metalcloth; the material shone as a mirror. The altar room’s bloodstone columns, black altar, sand-hued walls, the humanish sun and lake themselves, curved across Sànalàn’s back as she walked, as though the world itself clothed her.

  Tsecha bared his teeth in satisfaction. Humanish grow most still when they see my nìa. Sànalàn’s hair, which matched her skin in hue and her robe in shine, had been drawn back into the tight, braided knot of an unbred Vynshàrau. Her eyes, Tsecha recalled from her embassy identity badge, were large and green.

  They call her a walking Chinese porcelain, he remembered, thinking back to the humanish holo of the embassy staff’s arrival ceremonies which he had watched. It pleased him greatly that humanish compared his nìa to something of Mandarin, for such promoted connection between alien and idomeni, a sense of order most greatly to be wished.

  A sense of order which, Tsecha prayed, remained after his meeting with Ulanova.

  Sànalàn led him to the entry of one of his less favored meeting rooms, but declined to open the door. “She will speak to you of Amsun GateWay tariff issues.”

  “To be expected, nìa.”

  “Then there are the humanish sicknesses. She will ask if we are, too, affected.”

  Ah, but that even I do not know, nìa. The Council I represent will not tell me, even when I demand. They believe if they do not speak of such sicknesses, those sicknesses will disappear. They have become most humanish in that regard.

  The suborn placed her left hand over her stomach, as protection for her soul. “She has no right to ask of such things. As always, she will give nothing, and expect everything.”

  Tsecha gestured in affirmation. “The humanish are afraid, nìa. They do not yet understand the truth of what happens. So very few are ill now, but—”

  “If humanish took their honor in preserving order, they would not so fear the death of the body.” The suborn straightened and began to stroke patterns in the air, invocations against demons. So shaken was she that she did not offer apology for her interruption. “Their fear of death will destroy us all this time, and truly. They will strike at anything to save their lives. It is a most ungodly thing.”

  Tsecha reached out and gripped Sànalàn’s hands, stilling them. “You speak of things you do not understand, nìa. You were not born when we first learned of the fear.” He longed to look his suborn in her green eyes, but that would jar her to the roots of her soul, and such he could not afford to do.

  “It is you who do not understand, nìRau.” Sànalàn spoke slowly, boldly, as she tried to work free of his restraint. “So say the Temple. So say the Council. You took in humanish, not knowing their fear. Trained them in our ways, not understanding their fear. Paid almost with your life, for not destroying that fear when the gods allowed you the chance. You understand nothing! So say the Temple! So say the Council!”

  “And what do you say, nìa?”

  “Their words are mine.” The uncertain tremor in Sànalàn’s voice betrayed her, but she was of Sìah, and Sìah were most stubborn. “You understand nothing.”

  Slowly, Tsecha relaxed his hold on his suborn’s wrists. “But that is why I speak to Ulanova, nìa. Because I who understand nothing understand her best.” He spoke as humanish, with no gesture or change in stance, his tone flat, allowing his meaning to hide itself between the lines. Then he left his suborn to uncover that meaning as best she could and entered the meeting room.

  Inside the sparsely furnished space, Exterior Minister Anais Ulanova met him as any suborn Vynshàrau would have: in the center of the room, posture most straight, chin high, eyes closed. Tsecha had himself just spent many humanish hours in that most uncomfortable position. He wondered how long Ulanova had been standing such, or whether she had been sitting until she heard his discussion with Sànalàn end.

  Most humanish of me, to think in this way. Cynical, Hansen had called it. But the door to the meeting room was not soundproofed. To the best of Tsecha’s knowledge, supplemented by the work of his Intelligence skein, the Exterior Minister possessed no strong devotion to any deity and little regard for the other ministers. So what means this respect of hers?

  Tsecha bared his teeth, extended his hand as Hansen had taught him long ago, and summoned forth his best English. “Glories of the day to you, Minister Ulanova!”

  The Exterior Minister’s eyes snapped open, widening even more as Tsecha drew nearer. She tottered, took a step backwards to regain her balance, then held out her hand as well. Her lips curved, but she did not bare her teeth. “Glories of the day to you as well, nìRau,” she said, her low voice pleasing to Tsecha’s ear, though not precisely respectful. “I am so glad we could meet together at last.” The skin of her hand felt cool and dry, her grip loose.

  Cucumbers. The harsh humanish sound pleased Tsecha’s internal ear as Ulanova’s voice did the external, but why the peculiar word should enter his mind now…? My handheld. It remained behind in his rooms—it could not help him now. I am alone with the wall.

  Ulanova began the discussion, as was fitting. “Please extend my thanks to your suborn for her assistance in arranging this meeting, nìRau. I realize the notice was most short, and truly.” She led Tsecha toward two metalframe seats placed in one corner of the room. “But we have received news of an alarming nature from our Outer Circle agents. I felt you should be informed.” The Exterior Minister worked onto her tall seat with difficulty, appearing almost as a scuttling insect in the dark brown uniform she wore for her embassy visits. She was only of average height for a humanish female, which made her shorter than an adult Vynshàrau by half an arm’s length. “This news may affect us both greatly, nìRau,” she finally said as she edged upright.

  Tsecha found himself focusing on Ulanova’s feet, as always. So far above the ground…“Yes, Minister. Sànalàn mentioned your concerns of the Amsun GateWay.”

  “I lied to your suborn, nìRau.”

  Lied. Tsecha tore his attention from Ulanova’s dangling feet and looked into her face. “Lied,” he repeated aloud, as darkest brown eyes looked at him in turn.

  “She’s alive, nìRau.”

  “She?” He felt a tightening in his soul and took deep breaths to calm himself. “Of whom do you speak?”

  “Of Jani Kilian, of course, nìRau. She was seen on an Outer Circle colony by the name of Whalen’s Planet. It has one major population center in its northern hemisphere, a town called NorthPort.”

  “NorthPort, that is—”

  “Yes, nìRau, the site of one of the major Haárin settlements.” Ulanova’s tone implied no apology for the interruption, as was usual. “She was, in fact, on quite good terms with several of the Pathen Haárin high dominants, especially a shuttle broker named Genta Res. It was he who told my agent of the Captain’s existence.”

  Tsecha tugged at the sleeves of his overrob
e. The loyalty of Haárin—tidal, Hansen had called it. And yet…“I suspect, Anais, that ní Genta was threatened perhaps with cancellation of business permits before he felt the need to inform your agent of the existence of the Captain. Allow me to save both our staffs much time by lodging my protest of such with you now.”

  “She is a criminal in your government’s eyes as well as mine, nìRau. I thought this news would please you.” Ulanova’s tone grew harsh. “I have known for some time that your search for her has spanned years.”

  “My search, Anais. Not my government’s.”

  “Is there a difference, nìRau?”

  Tsecha smoothed the folds of his white overrobe, the red trim of his cuffs providing the only true color in the drab surround. “I was chosen to succeed Xinfa nìRau Ceèl as chief propitiator of my sect eighty-five of your years ago, as a most young one. The Laum had just claimed power from Sìahrau, and none believed Vynshà would ever rule over idomeni. Thus was I chief propitiator when we were only of Vynshà. If we become only of Vynshà again, chief propitiator I will still be.”

  “NìRau, I didn’t mean—”

  “To be in government serves only a purpose. For you as well as for me, I believe, Anais, and truly.” Tsecha maintained an even, humanish tone throughout his speech, ending by baring his teeth and sighing. An advantage, perhaps, to being as a wall. If he had ever given this type of speech in Temple or before Council, embellished with the full range of Vynshàrau gesture and posture, so that every emotion and feeling of his was revealed…I would again be fleeing from mixed-sect mobs demanding my life. Of that I am most sure. He breathed in deeply in an effort to slow his pounding heart. My Captain lives.

  Anais sat in silence. She had decorated her small hands, narrow as Vynshàrau but lifeless white, with several large-stoned rings, which she toyed with in turn. “We tracked Captain Kilian to a small Transport Ministry hostel located in what one might generously refer to as NorthPort’s business district, but one of Interior’s people beat us to the goal. My best man was able to catch up with her and work on her for over a month. He is positive we were put on the wrong scent, but I have been at this game longer than he.” Stones flickered in the light. “Very soon, I expect to be proven correct. We will have her, nìRau.”