by Patty Jansen
Taysha put down his plate with a soft and definite chink that seemed to end the “eating” part of the visit and start the “talking” part.
“Anyway, Delegate, I am glad that you have decided to come here so that I can meet you in person. There is a desperate need to deal with some business.” He waved to the motionless servant in the corner.
The man promptly left the room.
Damn, I really didn’t like his choice of pronouns. Accusatory almost.
A different woman now came into the room, bowed to Taysha and then to me. She carried a small tray with a piece of card on it and held it out to me.
What on earth was this?
No, not liking this at all.
I took the card, square, folded and about the size of my palm. I unfolded it. Across the inside was a paragraph of Coldi text in calligraphy.
Shit. It was a writ.
Hereby, I, Taysha Palayi, declare financial injury and loss of respect from the claimant who pressured me into signing away a contract I had negotiated many years ago and was much looking forward to taking up. I demand compensation or will revoke my permission for the woman in question to be released from her obligations to my family. I demand that such will be completed or agreed to be undertaken to my satisfaction within ten days of this statement having been read by the recipient.
I stared at the loopy text, its exquisite calligraphy belying the seriousness of the message. Coldi sent writs for serious legal matters. I didn’t know enough about Coldi law to judge the validity of this claim, but Taysha’s rank alone would demand some sort of response.
Normal writs dealt with serious grievances. The recipient was meant to respond adequately to the claims made or risk assassination.
Shit, that was not part of the plan. This had nothing to do with my job or Ezhya or the zeyshi. This was a direct and personal attack on me.
Why? What was this about? We’d finished with that business.
“I don’t understand.” I had to do my best not to sound completely bewildered.
“You don’t understand?” He cocked his head and regarded me, as if his looking at me would somehow instil me with understanding.
I stared back at him.
“Do you know what contracts are for?”
“Partnership.”
He scoffed and waved his hand at me. “Don’t give me any of that rubbish. Contracts are to beget children. Heirs.”
It was true. Contracts were rarely for love.
His eyes continued to meet me. “So. Tell me, when is your heir due?”
“I . . .” What the hell?
“There isn’t one, is there?”
“No.”
“There isn’t ever going to be one, is there?”
“Well, I don’t know about that—”
“There isn’t.”
“Well, I . . .” I seriously did not want to discuss it with this man. And even so, why the hell hadn’t he brought this subject up previously? Surely he had to have known?
“My brother and I selected Thayu from a long list of candidates to be the mother of our children. She gave my brother a son, as you will probably know. It is imperative, for the sake of the business interests of our families, that we have a family heir. The child in question needs to be a daughter. We have specific requirements for the mother of this child. Thayu meets them. We have been unable to find a replacement.”
And you have looked, how long?
“You are not going to use her allocation for one more child. You did not mention this in your negotiations.”
“That would have been fairly self-evident from the fact that I’m not Coldi.”
“You didn’t play fair with us.”
And giving me writs is fair?
“So this is our injury: the fact that we have already given her tests, and we have selected parts of her genetic make-up that we are going to activate with custom-made markers. This is work we have already done, at great expense to us. The only stage of the process that remains is for her to become pregnant and give birth to this child. I could let it rest as a matter of honour between two men, but you’re not even going to use this right. It is an insult, a slap in our face by an upstart foreigner who makes me look like a fool.”
“I’m sure I didn’t—”
“A fool, you hear me? I do not take kindly to being laughed at by my guards. Knocked out of the bed by an impotent bureaucrat I’ve heard them say. You have insulted me.”
“I haven’t done any—” Wasn’t that what I paid him for?
“So, here is my deal: I absolve you from any further favours to me if she has the child, fulfilling her obligation to me. She can continue to live with you if you want. I don’t need her to be here.”
What the fuck?
Through clenched teeth, I said, “Thayu is not some sort of breeding . . .” I was going to say cow, but Coldi didn’t keep domestic animals, much less bred them for anything. “. . . animal.” The Coldi word for animal wasn’t strong either. An animal was something curious and exotic, because few vertebrate species lived on Asto, and Coldi didn’t entertain the very human notion that animals were worth less than people. Nor was breeding a bad thing.
I glanced over my shoulder at Sheydu and Veyada, both of whom wore their unemotional faces and were not going to be any help. Hell, they might even agree with him.
“I’m afraid I don’t find that acceptable.”
“Then I will require compensation.”
I re-read the card in my hand. Sweat trickled down my back. I had trouble thinking through my anger. “What . . . what sort of compensation? I paid the amount you asked.”
If he was going to ask for more money, I was dead. Come to think of it, I was pretty much dead anyway. Whatever he wanted, I didn’t have the money or the power to give it to him. I didn’t want to give anything to him beyond what we’d agreed on.
A corner of his mouth lifted. Coldi didn’t normally smile and I’d come to associate smiles with bad news.
“I would have asked favours from you from within your world. You will know that I hold interests in a fair number of financial institutions and I could use some help with the facilitation of certain processes I want to complete—”
Such as illegally moving money to criminal organisations. “I don’t have any of that kind of power.”
“I am aware of that. Strange that such a populous world would send a delegate who has so little power. That shows how important they think we are, doesn’t it?” He laughed.
The rudeness of it stung almost as much as the impotent remark. I managed to remain quiet.
“Well, in that case I have to ask for money—”
“After what I’ve already paid? There is no justification that allows it. I have proof. It will never stand up under scrutiny.”
“Whose scrutiny? I could make it stand up to scrutiny.”
Oh, shit.
He continued, “But then again, things could get messy with our laws and their laws, and I want to keep my financial interests out of the court.”
I expelled a breath.
“So, we’re back at the original request.” His voice lifted. It sounded like the bastard was enjoying himself. “You are not going to make use of her allocation to have one more child. So she’s going to have mine.”
No. Fucking. Way. Was he going to get his hands on Thayu.
The corner of the mouth went up again. “This prospect distresses you?”
I breathed in deeply, trying to hold in the insults I wanted to hurl at the man. Or the insane urge I had to pull the gun out of its bracket—had I not left it with my suit that hung over Veyada’s arm—and shoot the bastar
d. I had often experienced the bluntness of Coldi correspondence and mistaken it for rudeness, but this man took the absolute cake.
He continued, “Do tell me about this curious habit you people have of choosing a partner for life. That must be incredibly boring and restrictive. If you would only understand the custom of nethana instead of trying to claim possession of everything you fuck. That seems a very tiring way of living to me.”
I don’t take possession— I clenched hands into fists so tightly that my nails dug into my palms.
And then I decided what the heck. The heat was probably getting to me, and this was probably the most stupid thing I’d ever do, not to mention the last thing I’d ever do. But my mother, who had died when I was eight, had not raised me to be a doormat, and if it was with her memory that I would end my life in this hellhole, then so be it.
I rose, crossed the room in a few steps and deposited the card on the table.
He stared at me.
I stared back.
He blinked.
My heart was thudding so loudly that he should be able to hear it. A drop of sweat was threatening to run into my eye, but I resisted the urge to wipe it away.
I spoke slowly, letting every word hit the right spot. I chose the most accusatory pronouns I could find. “You have no right to give me a fucking writ. You will not touch Thayu in any way. If Thayu has another child, which she well may if she wishes, she will select the father, and the child will live with us. I don’t see why you need additional concessions. We negotiated, I paid. We’re finished. I don’t have the power to give you extra business concessions on Earth even if I wanted to do it, which I don’t. I don’t have any money I can give you that you don’t already have. We’re fucking finished with this business—”
He laughed. “A very apt use of soldier’s language. To me, this only proves the depth of the sentiment. If you people have a particular attachment to a sexual partner, you become very defensive if anyone looks at that person.”
He was using me as a fucking guinea pig. Shut up, shut up. And shut up, Delegate Cory Wilson. Before I got myself into more trouble. Before I yanked the suit out of Veyada’s hands, got the gun and shot him, because there was certainly not much to stop me doing that.
I breathed out heavily. It was so hot that I could feel the breeze from my nostrils track over my skin.
Taysha continued. “So you’d rather I didn’t touch the lady. That leaves me little alternative but to ask for something that shouldn’t cost you anything at all.”
Another one of those dreadful smiles. Shit. He knew I had the key. My heart hammered against my ribs. Sweat was running into my eyes. Sheydu stood in the corner with my tank. I longed for the protection of the helmet and the cool air over my face but by hell I wasn’t going to appear weak and ask for it in front of this man.
“You have Ezhya’s command key, don’t you?”
There it was.
“I’m here as his supporter.” That didn’t translate well. The word I used, yetha, meant that I was part of his association, which of course I wasn’t. I was dropping stitches and needed to stay alert, but if he kept teasing me like this, I would die of heat stroke before he got to the end of the conversation.
His eyebrows rose. “Do you have the key?”
“He has given the key to us to be taken to the Inner Circle and only to handed over within the command hub.”
“Yes, but do you have it, personally?”
Deep breath. “No. Why would someone from the Inner Circle trust me with it, someone from outside?”
“Someone like you would be an excellent choice to carry it in a party like the one that accompanied you here, because you are the only one in that group who could never use it.”
“I don’t have it, and I can’t give it to you.”
I glanced at the window and the part of a roof and wall I could see there, despairing when and how this distraction of Asha’s was going to happen, or even if it was going to happen at all.
“But you know who has it?”
“The same person who would normally have it. They have not discussed those matters with me. I am here to discuss the Aghyrian claim with Risha and whoever else knows about the zeyshi Aghyrians.”
“Hmmm. That useless rabble. Do you think I believe that?”
He said nothing for a while and I eyed my tank and helmet in Sheydu’s hands. I needed those things. Now.
“Hmm,” Taysha said again and neither his voice nor his face showed any emotion. “Well, in that case, allow me to offer you hospitality in the guest rooms of my quarters. I am rather busy right now, but we can continue this conversation later, after I’ve caught up with the rest of your party. Don’t worry, I’ve sent out staff to buy food for weak stomachs and all your needs will be catered for. Unfortunately, I am not sure what you hope to achieve with your visit and your actions. I cannot help you. Unless you had rather cooperate with me in the matter of the lady.” They were all direct and rather rude pronouns.
I glared at him. The arsehole.
He rose and flicked his hand at the guards who had remained at the door. Those men opened the door for him. I followed him back into the foyer. I met my two guards’ eyes, wanting to ask them what they thought had happened to the diversion Asha had been planning to create, and that any time now would be a good idea.
Taysha watched bemused while I put my gear back on. My hands were so sweaty and trembled so much that the guards needed to help me with the helmet and the mask, but once I turned the cool air on, it was beautiful. I could think clearly again. Bliss.
We went back into the corridor where we went around a corner into another corridor, where a guard in silver with a red belt stood in front of a set of double doors. She opened the doors at our approach.
On the other side was the hall to the guest quarters, neatly appointed with the customary red rug and small table containing another arrangement of rocks, this time with an oil light on a stand.
Taysha showed us a sitting room, a bedroom and a modest bathroom. The sitting room contained the customary couches and low table, the latter with a couple of trays with food and drinks with the green-coded label attached.
“Make yourself at home,” Taysha said. “It is an honour to have you here.” We were back to professional pronouns and the whole mockery of the occasion annoyed me.
He and his entourage left, shutting the door behind them with a click.
Shit.
Chapter 11
* * *
THE FIRST THING Veyada did after the door shut was walk to it and hold his reader up to the lock. He shook his head.
I didn’t know what he meant or what he was doing, but I had no energy to deal with this now. I collapsed on the couch, alternately hot and shivering. I took off my helmet, but kept on the mask, sucking deep breaths of cooling air.
Sheydu went to the window, which overlooked the front of the building. She ran her comm along the sill and then all the room’s walls, corners and furniture. Seated on the couch, I could see the electrical activity readouts jump on the screen as she passed over certain spots. That was where the wires and bugs were hidden.
She nodded and sat down with me.
I knew all the signs. We were being monitored. The door was locked.
We were not guests; we were prisoners.
For some reason, Asha’s diversion had not worked.
Worse, I needed my adaptation medication, and Thayu had it.
Veyada also joined us on the couch. A sense of unease hung between us. I didn’t know these guards, didn’t know how much I could trust them and they were not at all the people I would have chosen to be locked up with.
Sheydu said, “Do eat something, D
elegate.”
I dragged one of the trays over the table. On it lay some nondescript doughy-looking morsels whose identity did not become clearer by eating them. I don’t know if it was because I felt tense, but the food sank straight to the bottom of my stomach and proceeded to sit there in an unmovable lump. At least the water was cold and safe.
We made small talk. I asked what the food was and Veyada explained about some sort of grain that grew in the aquifers. He also explained how the water had been filtered, because a lot of surface water on Asto was too acidic to qualify as green-coded.
I asked if there was any chance of visiting these fabled aquifers because they intrigued me, and Sheydu talked about which ones were closest. There was indeed a passage connected to the station where we had entered the building.
I suspected the latter was the only important bit of information exchanged in this conversation. It meant, Here is a way to flee, if you need it.
Veyada and Sheydu ate from the other tray. Veyada was fiddling with his reader. After a while, he handed it to me. On the screen was a diagram of the building. He had pointed out where we were and the position of the command hub on the floor above us and to the left.
But how would we get there if the door was locked and there were bars across the windows?
He made a hand signal. Don’t worry.
Then Sheydu said, “I think the Delegate would like a bath to cool off.”
It did sound like a good idea. In Barresh the bathrooms were like indoor pools: they were always full and constantly flowed over with hot water from the springs.
In Athyl, you had to fill the bath from a tap that filled up via an outlet in the bottom of the basin. The water had a brown tinge and smelled earthy. I hoped it was safe. At least it was quite cool. It was lovely to be free of all those layers of clothing.