Judge

by Karen Traviss

  MAINTAINER ASHID,

  duty technician,

  via emergency messaging

  Immigrant Reception Center grounds.

  There was plenty of unusable land around the center, enough to accommodate barracks for the Skavu. Esganikan walked around the perimeter fence with Laktiriu, Aitassi and Shukry to get an idea of how it might blend in with the center itself.

  “I think we should create the accommodation before we reshape the center itself,” she said. “Then we can move our own crew there while we reshape the rest of the center.”

  “What do you need us to do, ma’am?” Shukry asked.

  “Nothing. Nanites will reclaim the materials and rebuild the center to our design. It’ll be much more comfortable and efficient.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “A week or two. Don’t worry. When we leave in due course, the building will deconstruct itself and leave nothing.” Shukry looked puzzled. “I apologize. Would you prefer the building to remain?”

  “It’s not that,” he said. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  Esganikan decided it was time to give Shukry a show of Eqbas construction techniques. She remembered how mesmerized Shan had been by the construction of Eqbas buildings, and also by their rapid dismantling when Nevyan Tan Mestin had asked them to leave Wess’ej. Her Targassati noninterventionist sensitivities were offended by Eqbas policies, just like her ancestors who had left Eqbas Vorhi to live their isolationist life on Wess’ej ten thousand years earlier.

  She asked for our aid. Nevyan summoned us to keep the gethes out of Wess’ej space forever, and yet she thinks we interfere. We’ll do more than confine the humans—we’ll help them along with the rest of the inhabitants of this planet. Where’s the wrong in that?

  “Find me an engineer, Aitassi,” she said. “Just a small demonstration, a wall perhaps.”

  Shukry had that excited look, eyes wide, that all humans adopted whenever Esganikan showed them something new. “Is it going to be worth vidding?”

  “You want to record it? Yes, you can.”

  An engineer was found and persuaded to start work on an outbuilding at one end of the complex. She released the template nanites on the concrete, spraying them from a canister, and walked off again.

  Shukry held his recorder steady. “I can’t see a thing…oh…hang on.”

  Now he could see it. The process was slow, but judging by his noises of approval, Shukry was impressed by a process that could take material, break it down into its components, and remake it into something new. He edged in closer and eventually just let the little penlike cam drop to his side while he stared at the transformation. The flat, flaking blocks were taking on a more curved form; there was a bloom on them, an almost velvety appearance.

  “This…is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” he said at last. “We use nanotech, but nothing like this.”

  “That,” said Laktiriu, “underpins everything—the ships, the way we remediate contamination, everything.”

  Shukry was an instant convert. Perhaps winning human minds was simply a matter of showing them little things that seemed like magic to them. Esganikan savored the sense of optimism and walked the rest of the perimeter to stretch her legs.

  Now that Bari had started the human world thinking seriously about what changes would have to be made, it was time for her to show the decision makers what the mission could do to make the transition as painless as possible, and how long it took was up to them. As long as there was no backsliding, and they stopped breeding to excess and consuming so much, then they could reduce their population over many years, without killing.

  There would be starvation and disease, of course. There was no point repairing this world simply to let humans fill it again.

  The storms of recent days were still circling beyond the defense shield, and Esganikan considered changing the settings to let all the rain through, just to experience the volume of water in this arid land. It was at times like this that she longed for Surang and its greenery.

  Only a few years, and then perhaps I can surrender command to the incoming fleet, if enough progress is made.

  There were Skavu out on the landing strip, and not all of them were officers. Some of the engineers had also shown up from the Saint George camp; they must have been getting anxious to move the troops here too. Esganikan could see Kiir talking to them in a very animated way, and then looking in her direction, as if they were arguing and Kiir was threatening them with the wrath of Gai Chail for some shortcoming or other.

  He did seem very angry. Skavu tended towards passionate anger. No doubt he would let her know if the situation required her intervention.

  Records and Registrar’s Office, Kamberra: shortly after the funerals of Qureshi and Becken.

  Shukry was a gem, he really was. Ade had never met a bloke in his kind of job who was happy to do the donkey work, like driving and running errands.

  He’d met the Eqbas shuttle from Rabi’ah at the reception center, and driven the funeral party into Kamberra so the detachment could pretend to be normal people for a while. They didn’t even have to change out of their dark suits. They looked smart enough for a wedding even if their mood didn’t match the occasion.

  Ade had never felt less like celebrating, and he was beginning to hate himself for spoiling the day for Shan by having Izzy’s and Jon’s funerals in the morning. She never complained. She never did. But she had never been the type to want a fancy ceremony. If anything, she looked embarrassed and uneasy in a severe black dress. It would have been office-formal on anyone else, but on a woman he’d only ever seen in uniform, it was as exotic as a full white-lace rig and veil. They all sat facing each other on plush upholstered seats in one of the prime minister’s official cruisers, Barencoin, Chahal, and Webster on one side and Aras, Ade and Shan on the other. There was no point worrying about it being bad luck to see the bride before the wedding now. They’d had fucking terrible luck so far, and it was hard to think of it getting worse.

  “You’ve got legs,” Ade said, trying to shift gear from a grief that made it hard to even eat. “Two of them.”

  “You’ve seen them before.”

  “Not like that.”

  “Is this okay? Be honest.”

  “You look the business, Boss.”

  “Nice dinner afterwards, yes? Damn, it’s good to be able to access your account with a century’s interest. God bless the Australian Treasury.” Shan tried to draw the others into the strained conversation. “So when are you joining up?”

  “We’re supposed to get our papers next week,” said Webster.

  “I’m not sure I want to.” Barencoin stared at his hands. He always scrubbed up well, except for the five o’clock shadow that he could never quite defeat. “I’ve been thinking about a civvy job. Anything. Police, fire, paramedic, whatever. I’m going to grab the first woman I find and marry her, even if she’s ugly, and we’ll start banging out kids. Although I reckon the Eqbas are going to sterilize everyone or license shagging or something.”

  “Us ugly birds are grateful,” said Shan. “Good call, Mart.”

  They tried to laugh, but Ade found it brought him to the brink of tears and he was scared he wouldn’t be able to make it through the ceremony. It was one of the things that he’d planned in his mind. They said blokes never had daydreams about weddings, but it wasn’t true. He had, and more than once. Not the day itself, the stuff that women seemed to care about, but the simple fact that it would be nice to be married and know there was someone waiting for him who wasn’t just called girlfriend. It was a rubber stamp that said they weren’t just marking time until something better came along, even if they were.

  Most marriages ended up that way, of course, but people still got married; always had, always would. It was something humans did. If they invented something more than marriage—well, he’d go for that too. He’d make the biggest gesture he could for Shan because he loved her, and now she was just abou
t all he had left.

  The registrar’s office was a mock-Georgian setting in one of the administration centers sunk into the city, not quite as grim as he’d expected. It was a rush job, after all, and Shukry was pulling out all the stops, without questions.

  “You could have had my old parade lovats,” Barencoin said, studying Ade critically. He stood where Becken should have standing as best man. That was painful. “I told you so.”

  “I’d look a complete twat. You’re six inches taller than me.”

  “Ring?”

  “Got it.”

  The registrar checked the information twice.

  “Are these dates of birth correct?” he asked, looking at them both with faint unease. He obviously didn’t get many couples who clocked up a few centuries between them on paper. “Twenty-two-fifty—”

  “Yes, I’m over eighteen,” Shan said. “How far over eighteen is my problem.”

  The registrar gave her a nervous smile. “We’re bound to get a query on that. Confirm your full names, please.”

  “Shan Frankland.”

  “Adrian John Bennett.”

  “And you both confirm that you’re legally free to enter into marriage, and that you do so voluntarily and not for the sole purpose of gaining residency permits in this country.”

  Ade swallowed. His sinuses felt flooded from suppressed tears. “Confirmed.”

  “Yes,” said Shan.

  “Are there any additional legal agreements you wish to submit now as part of the marriage contract, such as disposal of property in the event of a divorce?”

  “No,” said Shan. “It’s unconditional.”

  Ade nodded once. “Nothing from me.”

  The registrar touched a few icons on his desk, a reproduction baroque-style table. It felt more like being hauled in front of the CO for a bollocking than the sweetly emotional moment that Ade wanted imprinted in his mind to tell him he was now Officially Happy. The registrar frowned at the text that appeared in the surface of the desk, hit another icon, and then seemed satisfied that it had accepted the information. It was probably their dates of birth again. They were both in the wrong century; they looked like errors. They were errors They didn’t belong here.

  “Now, you may exchange rings, tokens, and any personal vows you wish to make,” said the registrar.

  Barencoin passed the ring, and Ade slid it on Shan’s finger next to the one he’d already given her when he had nothing but his mother’s ring to offer. Okay, you wrote out your vows, you know it by heart now—

  He took a silent breath, ready to launch into words he’d spent a long time composing, measuring, erasing, and parted his lips to speak. But the tears were going to get there first, long before the happier words, and he dried up. Shan didn’t seem to notice. He hadn’t told her he’d had anything special to say. The moment passed.

  “Congratulations.” The registrar held out his code stylus, expecting them to proffer their hands for their chips to be updated. “You’re now legally recognized as partners throughout the Pacific Rim States and in all states that are signatories to the Beijing Convention. I can now revise your records.”

  “We’ll take the paper instead,” Shan said. “We’re not wired.”

  And that was that, their big day, a day that started by burying two people he’d loved and who’d been his family before he met Shan. It was early evening, and Shukry had used whatever magic words a PM’s bagman used to get them a table in a restaurant with a private area where no other diners would sit and stare at Aras. Ade had insisted that he come too. It seemed unforgivable to marry a woman and leave a house-brother out of it.

  It was a good meal, all vegan, culturally neutral territory. Shan raised a glass and said: “Absent friends.” It was Thursday, so the toast should have been to a bloody war and a quick promotion, but that would have been more than Ade could take.

  “Shall we go and find a bar now?” Chahal asked.

  “You go on,” Ade said. It wasn’t because Aras was with them; four marines could handle security on their own, Ade was sure of that, but he wanted to find some private silence to make sense of the last week. “We’ll call Shukry and head back to the center. We’ll go out on the piss before you take the Aussie shilling.”

  In the back of the car, Shan took his hand and just held it, comforting and not at all bridelike.

  “You’re a bloody good bloke, Ade,” she said quietly. “It’s worth every shitty moment I’ve ever had just to be your wife.”

  “Same here, Boss,” Ade said. “Same here.”

  Reception center.

  Aras didn’t know how to make the day better for Shan and Ade so he kept quiet, and tried not to rub raw emotions.

  He didn’t need any memories transferred through Shan via oursan to know exactly how Ade felt about dead comrades. The concept of special days that were sacrosanct and so had to be kept free from the intrusion of unpleasant reality defeated him, though, and he simply accepted it. He’d seen many weddings in the Constantine colony over nearly two centuries. They were all part of the god-ritual that he could follow but never fully experience.

  At the reception center, the hand of Eqbas technology was becoming more apparent. Nanites were busy digesting and reforming an area to the west of the entrance, shaping the architecture into new shapes and building in new functions, and the altered temperature and humidity within the defense shield—more important as protection against the relentless heat than attacks—had triggered long-dormant seeds. Plants were already struggling back to life. Aras took some pleasure from that.

  “That’s what Deborah would call a sign,” he said, catching Shan by the shoulder and pointing out the scattering of seedlings to her. He thought of the isenj, clustering in bewildered excitement around a single imported dalf tree planted in a bomb crater, the first tree and the first glimpse of bare soil on Umeh for centuries. “I’m very encouraged.”

  Shan squatted down to inspect it. She didn’t look comfortable in a dress, and kept tugging the hem down. “Actually, that cheers me up a little, too. And reminds me that the next thing I need to do is get Laktiriu pally with Deborah and Mo Ammad. A few people who get things moving, more people stick to the snowball…beats the Umeh experience.”

  “Better raw material,” Aras said.

  “I could have liked the isenj if I’d spent more time there. Maybe more than the bezeri.”

  Aras hadn’t yet found out what the state of play was on Bezer’ej. He’d never flown a deep-space mission before, and was now realizing how disoriented he was by the apparent time he’d lost. Bezer’ej was only last week, the week before, a blink of an eye in these chaotic and awful days on Earth. But in the quarter of a century that had actually elapsed, what had happened to Lindsay Neville? Had the bezeri population exploded, or were they waging wars, or had some other major change taken place?

  “How long do you think we’ll stay?” Aras asked. Ade walked ahead, wandering into the lobby, in a world of his own.

  “I think it might be longer than we want,” said Shan. “Maybe six months, maybe even a year. Enough to get Laktiriu on her feet.”

  “But a second-in-command should be able to step in at a moment’s notice, or forfeit the role.”

  “Okay, I’m getting soft in my old age.” She stood up and tugged at her hemline again. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I feel about the dirty work I’ve still got to do?”

  She means Esganikan.

  “I know. I’ve done it. Parekh. Josh.” Poor Josh. But he had a choice. “You’ll feel guilt, because humans do.”

  “I’ll feel hypocritical.”

  “Isan, you have never sought to spread c’naatat.”

  “I’m such a saint,” she said. “Come on, let’s keep an eye on Ade. I let him down. I lost two of our own. Don’t tell me I didn’t.”

  The lobby still had some trappings of what had once been a lavish resort, with an aging wall-width video screen that ran from one side of the entrance to the central staircase
. Ade sat on the bank of seats that curved against the facing wall, watching the image. As always, it was set to a news channel, one of the many BBChan options. The Eqbas and the ussissi treated it like an intelligence feed, a view of human thinking that they could match against what they observed worldwide from orbital remotes. Eddie would have been proud. But maybe he enjoyed his life more back on Wess’ej.

  “It’s ironic, isn’t it?” Ade said, not taking his eyes off the display. “Poor old Eddie never got over his editor calling him a liar about c’naatat, and yet it’s running in the Prachy story and nobody seems to give a shit about it.”

  The item on screen wasn’t connected to Eddie’s exposure of Prachy but Ade was obviously thinking about something else while he watched.

  The report was actually on a dispute over a water pipeline that crossed the Sinostates–FEU border. The Sinostates had revoked permission for the construction because it had changed its mind on cutting down hundreds of hectares of forest replanted in the last century. The Eqbas noted the shift in policy, Aras was certain. They were probably meant to.

  “What do you mean?” Shan asked, with that edge in her voice that said she was on guard and current concerns were temporarily forgotten. “When did that happen to Eddie?”

  “Before we left,” said Ade. You crashed into his interview with Helen Marchant, remember? His editor thought you looked too healthy for a girl who’d been spaced.” Ade chewed his thumbnail and examined it. “He decided to take the shit and not admit what c’naatat actually was. Really hurt Eddie, it did. Reputation and all that. Never mind. The editor’s long gone, and Eddie ran the story in the end.”

  “Is that a rebuke?”

  Ade frowned. “No, Boss. Just feeling sad about wasted lives. Look, I don’t even know if Eddie even feels that staying was a waste. He probably doesn’t—”

  “Are you telling me he exiled himself like some fucking martyr because he made a noble gesture to save me? So it’s all my fault?”