by Sarah Zettel
The inner door opened, making the Witness’s jade green robe flutter with its breeze. Paral made his obeisance and caught a good look at Basq on the way down.
Basq was not happy; Paral could sense it in the air around him, as palpable as the scent of vegetation and damp concrete that came in with him. Basq moved with the approved amount of decorum, but there was a quality to his movement that Caril had helped Paral learn to read when he first became Beholden to Basq.
“The Manager ki Maliad claims that the artifact is on field assignment and will not be recalled until she receives the supporting documentation of our claim.” Basq removed the camera patch from over his eye. The Witness moved forward, holding out her hand so Basq could drop the patch into it without doing more than glance at her.
Paral felt a brief flash of envy at the Ambassador’s control.
“This is most likely a delaying tactic. We cannot permit the artifact to remain in the hands of outsiders.”
Hope and worry both tugged at Paral. If Basq was so far wrapped up in the failure of his excursion to make such a remark in front of the Witness, he was not thinking clearly right now. But it also meant things had gone very badly. Paral suddenly felt how alone he was even more intensely than he felt the Witness’s regard.
“We need to contract satellite observation time to locate her whereabouts.” Basq sat in the chair in front of the trio of comm boards, but didn’t raise his hands to the keys. “Find out if the Gardens can be held accountable to the Diet for misrepresentation, possibly theft.”
Inspiration shot through Paral and, just for a moment, the cobweb sensation fell away from him. “A suggestion, Ambassador.”
“Yes?” Basq turned toward him so that Paral had to look his master full in the face.
Look humble, Paral instructed himself, and a little embarrassed. “It’s not entirely proper. I have… friends stationed at one of the observation posts. If I relayed the request to them, they might be willing to start the search before the allotment request comes in… I could post myself at the station and relay any information to you immediately…”
Basq didn’t say anything. He was ever mindful of the Witness, even more than Paral was. The camera set over her right eye gleamed even blacker than her skin. Paral’s palms began to sweat, but there was nothing to do but wait while Basq weighed propriety against emergency.
Just a little nudge, thought Paral, drawing justification from Caril’s comments about how susceptible Basq was to prodding.
“I recognize this is irregular, however, Amaiar Gardens may attempt to transfer her, or she may desert the premises…” He let the sentence trail off.
It had been enough. “Proceed, Beholden.”
Paral made obeisance, partially so he did not have to look at the Witness. “Yes, Ambassador.”
Paral made his escape as coolly as he could manage. One of the station’s enclosed private cars waited out on the street. He had an hour to spare, maybe two before Basq wondered what had happened to him. It would take that long for Basq to put together the documentation for Zur-Iyal ki Maliad, in case he could find no legal discrepancies in her conduct and was forced to proceed on her terms. Paral could relay his improper request to the station en route to the Shessel Embassy. The plan was in motion. All was working smoothly.
He just wished he could shake the feeling of the Witness’s eyes from off his skin for one moment more.
9—Amaiar Division, Kethran Colony, Hour 06:20:34, City Time
…for when humans see freedom, they lose the will for slavery.”
—Zur-Ishen ki Maliad, “Upon Leaving Kethre"
“They asked specifically to be allowed to deal with you.” Shim, the Third in the Emissary Voice, stretched both secondary arms toward Kiv.
Kiv rippled and sagged and wished for his siblings. He’d thought himself ready for the isolation of off-planet work, but it was not so. The old-timers had warned him. The comfort of his children was not the same as having his siblings and nieces and cousins around him. Even with Ere draped around his shoulders, he still felt alone. Shim, a grounded priest, was a fifth cousin Kiv had never met until he had volunteered to hatch out his children on Kethran Colony. The relationship was not close enough to provide any security. It was frightening to realize he knew Human Perivar better than he knew the cousin in front of him.
We serve, and service has never needed the weak, he reminded himself. My daughters will understand these humans who live like priests and act like madmen, even if I never do. They will carve out lives safe from the possibility of bondage with them.
Among the human enclaves, the Rhudolant Vitae were particularly insane. The thought of them wanting to meet with him specifically was nerve-racking. The embassy environment, lovingly designed with its arched ceilings and varying textures in subtle shadings of blue and violet, was not relaxing him at all, because he kept thinking about Aria Stone, and about Perivar’s impossible promise that nothing would touch Kiv or his family.
“We have been in touch with our embassies on Kethre and on seven of the stations,” Shim was saying. “The Rhudolant Vitae are withdrawing everywhere. The matter of this planet is of the greatest import to them. We need to understand how it will shift the power balances of their ‘family.’ You may be able to garner some information about this.”
“I will…”
“Do my best,” finished Ere for him.
Shim withdrew three of his eyes. “That is all we ask, Kivere. They are waiting in the visitor’s chamber.”
Ere tightened her grip with her feet on Kiv’s back as he bunched his muscles against his inner trembling. They moved through the series of bubble-shaped rooms that linked the audience chamber with the visitor’s chamber. Perivar had once expressed his surprise at the fact that the Shessel, with their horizontal torsos, did not like long corridors, until Kiv pointed out to him that humans, in general, did not live in high-ceilinged closets.
Ere’s hands kneaded Kiv’s shoulders. She was plainly excited by this new game. Kiv worried sometimes that Ere loved intrigue a little too much, especially for someone who had not even started her second growth yet.
The visitor’s chamber had been placed under one of the largest domes. The room was framed with interlocked hexagons of steel struts. Between the struts hung membranes like the one that separated Kiv’s room from Perivar’s. The inside of it held human-style amenities and the outside held the Shessel.
Under the membranes waited two Vitae. Kiv blinked all his eyes and Ere’s grip tightened. Two red-and-white children, bald as the adults, flanked the Vitae. The children stood as close to their chaperones as they could. Their eyes were wide and round, a sign of Human fear, Kiv knew.
“What game do they play, Father?” murmured Ere. “Humans do not bring their children to transact businesses.”
Kiv stroked her back. “Thank you for the reminder, my first named. What game is an excellent question.”
Kiv extended himself all the way; eyes, ears, and head alert and towering over the visitors. The Vitae made no move.
“I am Kivererishakadene. With me is my first named, Ere. I say you welcome and ask to what end you have come?” The construction was formal in the extreme, but the Vitae were not to be greeted lightly.
“I am Ambassador Ordeth and here stands Ambassador Paral. With us are our children Iolphian and Tala. We are come to offer payment for a service you can provide us.”
“If you need some communications work done…” began Kiv.
“My partner and I have an office…” Ere finished for him. Kiv laid one of his primary hands on Ere’s mouth. This was not Perivar they dealt with. They would act in the Human fashion here, with either the parent or the child speaking the thought. Not both,
“It is not communications support we need,” said Paral. “It is a separate service, and we will pay twice the amount of your average annual income for it.”
Nervousness closed down Kiv’s ears. He forced them open and whistled. “So much? For
what service?”
“You have heard our announcement of claim to the world designated MG49 sub 1?”
“We have.”
“On that world there are artifacts which endangered our Ancestors and finally forced them to flee their home. It is imperative that we know all we can of them before our children walk on the Home Ground. Otherwise, the danger will be the same for us as it was for our Ancestors. To mitigate this, we took one of the artifacts to a ship for study. It was stolen from us. We now know that your partner Yul Gan Perivar assisted in the marketing of the artifact…”
“You are speaking of Aria Stone?” Kiv shrank back, sheltering Ere a little in the curve of his neck.
“I speak of an artifact,” said Ambassador Paral. “One that might come once again into Perivar’s hands. If this is the case, we ask that you return it to us.” Paral laid a hand on Tala’s shoulder. The child jerked reflexively, but the adult held on. “Two years’ pay is a small thing compared to giving my child a safe home. As soon as you agree to the service, you will receive a year’s pay. If you enact this service, you will receive another year’s pay, which will be given directly to your children if you so wish.”
“Why are you not speaking to Yul Gan Perivar?” Kiv asked.
“He has worked against the Vitae in the past,” said Paral, without even pausing to consider the question. “We have no reason to expect him to do differently now. Your contract of service will mean that you are ready to respect the laws of the world where you do business, where your partner is not.”
“It will mean more yet,” said Iolphian. Under the voice of the translator, Kiv heard the piping of an immature human and, against his will, something inside him softened. “It will tell the Vitae that the Shessel are better allies than many of those who call themselves human. Once grounded, the Vitae will have to build a new life and we will need a great deal of help.”
“Singsong,” Ere buzzed in Kiv’s hindmost ear. “The speech patterns are wrong. That one has memorized this speech. They are trying to relax our spines with this.”
Kiv winked one eye briefly to indicate he had heard. In his mind, he had his own suspicions. You would bribe my entire people? For possession of one parent?
“And if I do not give my agreement?” Kiv asked.
“Then we will take our leave and thank you for your honesty and no Shessel shall again be troubled by a Vitae request,” said Ordeth.
Kiv did not even need Ere’s anxious buzzing to recognize the threat. He retracted his neck and secondary arms, sinking below the Vitae’s eye level. It was a stance that never failed to make Perivar uneasy. There was no reaction from the Vitae.
“Because you are bringing the welfare of all the Shessel into this,” Kiv said, “you force me to consult the Emissary Voices before I take what you offer.”
Whatever Ordeth said to Paral, it didn’t translate. All Kiv heard was “Navin uary ketket ti.” Whatever that meant. Paral replied “Iveth mikhain.” The children stood like dolls and said nothing at all.
Ordeth faced Kiv again. “Please consult the Voice then. We can wait a short time only.”
Kiv had been dismissed by humans before, but seldom so abruptly. Why would they bribe an entire people? he thought as he turned on his own length and left the room. Because they can.
“It’s a charade,” said Ere eagerly. “Father Kiv, it IS a game. Those children were props and…”
“Yes, Ere, yes.” Kiv stroked his daughter’s feet with his secondary hands. “Now we have to hope the Voice will let us make a worthy countermove.”
The Emissary Voice waited in the audience chamber. Ere shifted her grip on Kiv so that she hung on with only her legs and could fold her arms in respectful greeting. Kiv did the same even as a spasm of uneasiness ran through him. The Voice was composed of strangers. Shim carried Kiv’s skin tones because he was a cousin, but only the Sky Fathers knew where his enclave was. Ji was a loose-skinned northerner with great gaps artificially carved in his scales. Gov smelled familiar, but the familiarity was not an easy one.
Kiv accepted the need of union. With the skies crowded with humans, the Shessel could not be divided. There could be no room left in the Voice, or in the offworld residents for the makings of feuds. It was right that if the Voice had no siblings, no close cousins on this world, that he should not either.
It was right, but it was not easy. Kiv drew a great deal of calm from the fact that Ere saw them only as Shessel. Which is what they were. Only Shessel, like he was.
The Voice had, of course, already heard what had passed between Kiv and the Vitae. It was too important a conversation to have gone unmonitored.
Gov extended himself fully. “You will give them your promise to deal with their property as they require.”
Kiv knelt, lowering his torso defiantly to the floor. “There is more here than is immediately obvious, Emissary. What they call an artifact…”
“Is also a parent with living children.” Ere leaned herself over the top of Kiv’s head. “Four of them.”
“To which the Vitae have laid claim,” said Gov. “If they own the children, they own the parent.”
Which answered the question about where Gov came from. The Si-Tuk peninsula had practiced slavery right up to the tune the Unity Laws had been laid down. Right up to the time Kiv’s parent had dropped her eggs.
“But how have they laid claim?” asked Kiv. “All they say is that their ancestors came from this place. Well, my ancestors came from the Si-Tuk province.” He stretched all his eyes directly toward Gov. “Yet for three-quarters of a century, the Si-Tuk vigorously contested our enclave’s right to return there, and enslaved those who disagreed with them.”
Gov hissed and Ji retracted himself. “Kivere, now is a very bad time to bring up old wars.” He peeled open three eyes. “The Vitae have always been very precise in their dealings with us. If their representatives say that we will have no more dealings with them, we must accept that at face value. Remember, the humans can afford not to care about us, but we must care about them. There are too many of them. They are everywhere.”
“How much of what you say is influenced by your partnership with Yul Gan Perivar?” asked Shim abruptly.
Ere hissed. Shocked, Kiv squeezed her mouth closed. What’s she thinking? Sneering at the Emissary Voice because of a remark about a human…
No, she is sneering at three strangers because of a remark about Perivar. The realization hit Kiv hard. He was not the only one who knew Perivar better than a cousin.
“A fair question,” he said, more to Ere than to the Voice. “I would say a great deal is influenced by it. I thought that was the point of the Voice and the Enclave licensing my partnership, so that I and my children could be influenced by humans.
“It is worth remembering, Emissary Voice, that humans are not all Vitae,” said Kiv. “Many of them do not even like the Vitae.”
“And many of them do not even like us,” Shim reminded him. “The Vitae, unlike the Unifiers, are at least indifferent to our biology.” He raised himself up until he was the tallest in the room.
Before any of the Voice could speak, Kiv extended his neck. Ere laid all her hands on the top of his head and extended herself as well to add weight to what he said. “Yes, sirs, I agree, we must be careful of the Unifiers. But there are more than those two choices for us. As you said, the humans are everywhere…”
“But not everywhere do they agree, or even speak with each other,” finished Ere.
Ji retracted even farther. “I do not clearly hear what you are saying, Kivere.”
“The Vitae are retreating. We see this everywhere. Even if it is only a partial retreat, a temporary retreat, a weakness will be created when they leave. The humans will be scrambling to rebalance themselves.” He felt Ere’s feet shift and knew she was extending herself to her absolute limits.
“Why should the Shessel not be part of the new balance?” Ere whistled triumphantly. “We have resources, we need business. If we b
ecome a prop to the humans, they will fear to lose us as they fear to lose the Vitae.”
Shim retracted his snout thoughtfully several times. The others remained ominously still.
“What is the sudden eloquence that has come upon you, Kivere?” asked Gov.
Kiv extended his arms and Ere swarmed down them so that she was presented to the Voice. “I have staked the lives of all my children on the idea that we will be able to find some way to coexist with the humans that does not compromise the Shessels’ future.”
It was totally unfair and he knew it. Only business operators were allowed to hatch their children offworld. Emissaries had to drop their eggs unfertilized or leave them in stasis. It was as unfair as the Vitae bringing their own offspring into the visitor’s chamber.
Gov retracted his secondary arms. “However intriguing this possibility is, it would call for a change in official policy. Therefore, we cannot act on it.”
“We could if the Emissary’s council changed the policy,” suggested Ji, and Kiv wondered how united the Voice really was.
“We must not overreach ourselves,” said Shim reluctantly. “We are emissaries to the Kethran Diet, not the Vitae.”
“We need to know if the Emissary’s Council has been approached by the Vitae and what their decision is before we do anything in this matter,” agreed Ji.
Gov pressed his primary arms against his sides. “The Vitae have already made their policy clear. Even should there be merit in Kivere’s proposed risk, we do not have the time to dither about.”
“The Vitae cannot deny our need to consult with the Emissary’s Council,” said Ji. “They are a highly organized political body, they understand the concept of service and supervisors.”
“Perivar and I can open a channel for you in an hour.” Ere took her old position on Kiv’s shoulders. Frustration squirmed through Kiv. Of course Ere would bring Perivar into this. She didn’t understand that this whole bizarre situation was caused by him.