Nema flicked his left hand in affirmation. “Eventually, I am most sure. My injured Lucien believes she first would force you to testify in Cabinet Court against van Reuter. The trial would be broadcast throughout the Commonwealth. Such a triumph for my Anais.” His brow wrinkled in bafflement. “She hates van Reuter so. Lucien tried to explain it to me, but I could not understand. Things to do with business and your ways of marriage, among so many other stupid things. Such ridiculous disorder, inappropriate for dominants of their levels, and truly.” He sighed. “So much I do not understand, and no one is to be left to me to explain.” He looked Jani in the face and his posture grew somber. “Step closer to me, nìa, so I can see you.”
Jani edged nearer, fighting down the urge to bolt back inside the hospital. When Nema grasped her chin and tilted it upward, her eyes stung and her throat ached.
“You have not changed, nìa.”
“I look completely different to humanish.”
“Humanish only look at the face. I see the gestures and hear the voice of one who is most as she was.” Nema’s amber eyes glittered like molten metal as he studied her. “I would have spoken with you in your hospital, after your damned transport explosion, but John would not let me. He hid you away, when I could have sheltered you better. He behaved in a most stupid manner.”
“He had his reasons, nìRau.”
“Yes, stupid humanish reasons. Did you choose him freely?”
“Yes. No.” Jani pulled Nema’s hand away from her chin. “I thought he’d turn me over to the military police if I didn’t. By the time I realized he never would have done that, it was too late. The Haárin had entered the city, the humanish were fleeing—”
“And he, your physician, did not see you safe!”
“I never gave him the chance, nìRau.”
Nema took a step back from her, touching the side of his face in a way Jani couldn’t interpret. For the first time she could recall, her teacher appeared at a loss for words. “You must go soon,” he finally said in English, his speech stripped of gesture. “Lucien has found a ship which will take you as far as Felix. I do not know how he found it. He tried to explain it to me, but I could not understand! It is not as it was with you. My Eyes and Ears. When you saw and heard, it was as if I myself saw and heard.”
“You had Hansen.”
“Hansen was Hansen. He taught me games—he was not you. And now I have found you after so much time, and you must run again.”
Jani took a deep breath. “I killed, nìRau.”
“Yes.” Nema tucked his hands into his sleeves. “You killed. In that way, as well, you are most as you were.”
“I did what I did.”
“Yes, nìa. We all do what we do.”
She stared into her teacher’s eyes, felt adrift in a sea of gold. “I’d do it again.”
“Yes. Your own did not know you for what you are. The Laumrau believed your own, and see how they paid.” Nema’s attitude grew distant, as though he questioned her for an exam. “You have recovered from your injuries most rapidly, I understand?”
Jani nodded, addled by his presence and the abrupt change in subject. “Yes, nìRau?”
“Your Dr. Mon-toy-a, he is confused. Albino John is not so confused, I think.”
“I wouldn’t know, but—”
“And you, nìa, are not confused at all.”
“We’re not at Academy anymore, nìRau. We don’t have time for philosophies.”
Tsecha gestured sadly. “No, you are most right, nìa. The time for philosophies has passed us both.” He fell silent, staring at her impassively. Then he pulled his hand from his sleeve. Held the closed fist out to her. Opened it. “Now is the time for realities.”
Her Academy ring rested within. The jasperite glinted like the eye of a night creature.
“Inshah,” Jani said, addressing Nema with the informal High word for teacher, “you’re wrong.”
“Wrong?” Nema’s brow wrinkled as he considered the concept.
“I’m not the one you want. Hansen would have been, maybe, but not me. I’m too disorderly.”
Tsecha nodded, gesturing in strong affirmation. “You are toxin, Captain. You bring pain and change. Such is your way. You know no other.” He reached for her right hand and placed the ring on her third finger. It was still too small—metal scraped over skin as he forced it into place. “Still some time yet, I think. But soon. Soon.”
“I’m not your heir, nìRau. You’ve made a mistake.” Jani sensed motion out of the corner of her eye and turned to find Lucien standing in the garage entry. He tapped his timepiece. “I have to go,” she said.
Nema looked at Lucien and sighed. “Yes.” He turned back to Jani and stood straighter. “But someday, when you have not killed for a time, you will come back to me. Then we can argue your suitability.” His lips curved. It wasn’t an idomeni expression of goodwill—he didn’t bare his teeth a millimeter, or even cock his head. It was a humanish smile, the smile of someone who knew better. “a lète onae vèste, Kièrshi-arauta,” he said as he gestured farewell to her, left hand extended, palm facing up. A farewell to an equal. Then he slipped back into his skimmer. The vehicle came to life with a smooth hum, then flitted away from its station and out of the garage like a bedraggled bat.
It took Jani a moment to realize she was shaking.
Lucien drew up beside her and handed her her duffel. “He drives like a maniac,” he said, still smarting from his abrupt dismissal. “Not much for good-byes, either.”
“No,” Jani agreed, “none of the Vynshàrau are. They each live in their own little world. Nema figures if he likes you, you’ll come to him again, and if he doesn’t, why should he care?” She tried to fluff her pillow-mashed hair, then tugged at her medwhites in distaste. “Trade ya clothes,” she said, eyeing Lucien’s warm polywools with envy.
“I’ve got some for you in the skimmer.” He headed toward his charge slot. “We better get going—your shuttle leaves in an hour.”
Jani fell in quietly behind Lucien, noting with interest that he now drove a stolid blue sedan. “New skim?” she asked, as they drifted sedately into busy late-afternoon traffic.
“It does what it has to. It’s also less conspicuous and loaded with antitracking.” Lucien frowned at Jani as he maneuvered between lanes. “Yes, I had to give the other one back to Anais. Happy?” He reached behind her seat. “Here,” he said, tossing a bundle of clothes in her lap.
“Who sideswiped your face?” Jani asked as she pulled a heavy shirt over the medwhite top. Service surplus winterweight fatigues, baggy and dark blue. Her kind of clothes. “Anais or Claire?”
Lucien touched his injured cheek. “None of your business.”
“Be that way. Are we going to O’Hare?”
“No. A private port.” He unsnapped the top of his shooter holster as he eyed the traffic flowing around them.
Jani tugged on her heavy trousers. “How are Steve and Angevin?”
“Forell was locked up for a day and a half. Unfortunately, they found the code. Ange rousted some of her dad’s old Academy chums. Your old chums as well, I suppose. They twisted arms. You could hear the sockets pop all down Cabinet Row.”
“I would liked to have seen them before I left.”
“Not an option. I’ll tell them good-bye for you.” Without warning, Lucien cut across five lanes of traffic and shot down an exit ramp. Jani took a few deep breaths to slow her heart, but kept her comments to herself. She knew the difference between reckless and evasive driving.
“Montoya told me you ignored the news,” he said as he maneuvered down a side road. “No mention of Betha. Lyssa’s death is still considered an accident.” He paused. “Ridgeway’s death has been ruled a suicide.”
“I broke his neck,” Jani said as she pulled off the med-shoes. “Wonder how the medical examiner explained that?”
Lucien shrugged. “It’s Chicago. Precedent exists.” He nodded toward the bag, which he’d tossed on the floor at J
ani’s feet. “Your boots are in your duffel.” He stared at the side of her face until she gave in and looked at him. “I don’t know why you should feel bad,” he said. “He would have killed you.”
“It’s just post take-down.” Jani stared out the window at the passing scenery. “Look, I do what I have to. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect me.” She took a deep breath and opened her duffel. “Ah shit.” She picked at the ragged-edged remains of her scanproof compartment.
“Sorry about that,” Lucien said. “By the time I got my hands on it, Doyle had already torn it apart. I was able to sweep your room at Private before her people got there, though. Hope I got everything you need.”
Jani thumbed through the bag’s contents. Her boots. Two sets of coveralls. Underwear. Scanpack. Tools and parts. Her shooter, fully charged and polished. The tiny soldier saluted her from an inside pocket, where he stood guard over a static pouch containing an ID and cashcards.
She probed deeper. Her hand closed around the holocard. She studied it in the half-light of the cabin, tilted it back and forth. The racers swooped and glided, surfing the wind. She looked at Lucien out of the corner of her eye. Lucien the manipulator, who could always be counted on to keep his head. The frosty operator. The beautiful young man with the dead eyes. And a cheek that had been a scratched mess four days before, but was almost healed now. She touched her own shooter graze, mended to barest visibility. “You gave me this card for a reason. For a while, I thought it was your oblique way of telling me Lyssa was an augie. But that wasn’t it, was it? You were letting me know. You’re an augie, too.” She waited until he answered with a scarcely perceptible nod. “When did you have it done?”
He touched the back of his neck, where bottom of skull met top of spine. “About ten years ago. It was my fifteenth birthday present from Anais.”
“Is it like mine?”
“Not entirely. It’s an improved version of the one Martin had. By then, they’d learned it was better to wait.” He turned down a narrower road. In the distance, shuttleport lights blazed against the darkening sky. “I don’t know if I’d be any different without it. Like they say, it only augments what’s already there. Or in my case, what isn’t.” He bypassed the small charge lot, parking the skimmer at the edge of the tarmac next to a large baggage trolley. “Let’s get a move on.”
After a week of frigid cold, a comparative heat wave had settled over the city, making coldsuits and face shields unnecessary. Jani found the double layer of polycotton she wore adequate to keep her warm. She lagged behind Lucien, who broke into a trot as he neared a line of shuttles going through their preflight inspections. A serious-looking older woman in an olive green flight suit, pilot’s headset dangling from her neck, walked out to meet him.
Jani circled the woman’s ship. Late-model commercial shuttle. Sleek. Well maintained. Even the most suspicious Customs agent would think twice before searching it. It reeked of paid-up docking fees and clean inspection records. Therein lay the problem. I can’t afford to go anyplace you could take me. Jani reached up to stroke the shuttle’s smooth underside. And anyplace I want to go, you’d stand out like a boil.
She left Lucien and the pilot as they began the preflight walkaround and set off on her own inspection. She passed along the short line of shuttles, looking for signs of gold striping on the right side of the entry door. Customs’ scarlet letter, a sign to all that dockscan had turned up something suspicious and you’d been boarded and searched. Most ships sported at least one such badge of infamy. Law of averages dictated you’d get nailed at least once if you flew long enough. Two or three meant bad luck or a lousy ship’s clerk. More than that meant stupidity or bloody-mindedness.
No stripes, however, could mean one of two things. It could mean the ship was brand-new, too young to have a record with Customs. Case in point, Lucien’s ship.
Or it could mean the ship had changed hands recently. New owner meant a clean bill of regulatory health for the vessel involved. New owner could mean someone anxious to keep it that way. Someone unfamiliar with the law of averages.
Jani stopped before the first vessel she came to that had no stripe. A few reentry blisters marred the polycoat skin—other than that, it appeared in good shape. A serviceable shuttle. Older model. “Hello,” she said to the pilot, who was in the midst of his own walkaround.
The man looked up from his recording board. A serviceable face. Older model. “What do you want?”
“Nothing.” Jani smiled. “Just stretching my legs.” She sidled up to him, peeking over his shoulder at the board display. Standard preflight checklist. She spotted three coding mistakes in the first four entries. Nothing that would interfere with the actual piloting of the vessel, of course. But Treasury Customs didn’t give a rat’s furry ass whether a pilot could hit his mark on an ocean float blindfolded. If that pilot could not fill out his forms properly, that pilot would live to regret the oversight.
The man tensed when he realized he was being watched. “Is there a problem, ma’am?”
Jani shrugged, backed off. Kept smiling. “Just checking out your coding.”
The man’s Adam’s apple bobbled. “What’s wrong with my coding?”
Jani pointed to the first entry. “You’ve entered takeoff data on a docking line. When the board tries to calculate your flight stats, you’ll get an error message.”
“So I’ll just erase and reenter.”
“If you don’t code the deletion, it won’t recognize your erasure.” She took the board out of his hands. “You need to give it a reason, so that when you download the data to Luna dockscan, it will read ‘entry error, deletion because of such and such, reentry.’ Otherwise, it just sees an unexplained mistake. Being a Cabinet system, it thinks, sloppiness. Then it thinks, sloppy incompetent or sloppy on purpose? Then it calls a human.” She activated the stylus and enacted the change. “A Customs docking inspection is a hell of a way to start the day.”
“It’s just a mistake.” The pilot watched Jani make rapid multistep entries without a hitch. “You know this stuff, huh?” He rubbed his chin. “Have a look at the rest of it, if you don’t mind.”
It was so easy, Jani at first suspected a sting, a crackdown on non-Registry clerks. The manifest, however, proved to contain the sorts of convoluted, ingenious errors usually executed by someone who knew just enough to be dangerous. The look on her face must have alarmed the pilot. He started to say something as she handed the board back, but she cut him off with a headshake and an absent “G’night.” She turned, started to walk away, counted. One. Two. Three. Do you want—?
“Do you want a job?”
Jani stopped, turned back, pretended not to understand.
“Only if you need one, of course. But if you don’t, you know, I’d pay for your time. I can get you back here tomorrow. If you need to get back.” He stuck out his hand. “My name’s Zal.” He approached gingerly, his face reddening. Obviously not the type to solicit strange women in shuttle-ports, but honest working-class fear had made him desperate. “Take you to Luna. Or farther. I’m starting a new transport business with my brother. He’s handling the registration up there.” He waved in the general direction of Earth’s only natural moon. “We sure could use the help, though. Someone who knows how to fill out all these blasted forms.”
The deal was cut quickly. Zal had been too relieved at the thought of handing off clerical duty to ask Jani her name, which was fine with her. It would give her time to think of one.
The stripped-down interior of this shuttle couldn’t compare with the one in which she’d arrived a little over a week before. She strapped herself into her seat, stuffed her duffel into the grapple rack beneath, then started plowing through the manifest revisions. As the low powers rumbled to life and the shuttle taxied toward the runway, she twisted in her seat to look out the port. Lucien and his pilot had split up and were darting from vessel to vessel, accosting everyone they saw. Then the shuttle turned, and they disappeared from view. With
in minutes, takeoff acceleration drove Jani into her seat.
“Sorry, Lucien. I just don’t like being herded.” She felt a pang of guilt that she hadn’t said a proper good-bye after all he had done for her, but it soon passed. She liked him. Therefore, they would find one another again. She could adopt Nema’s attitude, use it to keep her warm tonight.
Her old teacher’s gift glinted in the cabin light as she wrote. Jani glanced out the port again as the shuttle banked over Chicago on the way to its exit corridor. It struck her how the ring’s glittering red stone mimicked the lights of the city below. And foretold the lights of the cities to come. Wherever they were.
EPILOGUE
The stylus moved across the blank parchment. Beneath the moving tip of the writing instrument, the curves and whorls of High Vynshàrau appeared as though demon-written.
It is only science, Tsecha thought as he read his words, reconsidered, and made changes. Pro-dye impregnation. Ultraviolet light. Delocalization of electrons. So dull, such lucid explanation. He preferred to believe the words appeared on the paper’s surface by magic, the work of demons.
His Temple and his Oligarch, if they could have read what he wrote, would no doubt have agreed.
…for humanish ways are not so different from ours. A piece of clothing. A color of eye. An intonation. Such are all that separate us.
He frowned, stylus poised above the newly inscribed phrases. So obvious, the ideas. Did he really need to explain such?
“Steven is beyond this.” He sat back in his favored chair, allowed it to stab him in the usual places, and meditated on the stark simplicity of his room. Yes, his Mr. Forell had come along quite quickly. But then, so eager had he been to learn. He had petitioned Tsecha personally for instruction in Vynshàrau document systems, saying he could not hope to further his Interior career without such specialized knowledge. Of course, Tsecha had not believed him. Not when he pulled Angevin into the meeting room after him like a reluctant youngish, and demanded Tsecha tell him the story of his Captain.
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