by Patty Jansen
Eying me with interest.
Risha said, while indicating the zeyshi leader, “For the newcomers who don’t know her, this is Nayu.”
I acknowledged her.
She observed me wordlessly as if she were an older Natanu-clone. I couldn’t help hearing Natanu’s words: “I only take part in fights I’m sure I can win.” Had she been human, I would have guessed her about fifty, with white streaks in her hair and no-longer firm skin with spots and wrinkles.
So this was the rebel leader who had been causing trouble in Athyl according to the shey’ shamata official news service of Asto. And here she was, offering a refuge for one of the Inner Circle’s power brokers. He had been talking to the zeyshi Aghyrians about their claim when the Exchange went down? Why was he so friendly with them? This was getting really strange and would be interesting if we weren’t in the middle of it.
“I’m glad you’ve come here.” Risha said. “These good people are so kind to look out for any Inner Circle refugees and bring them to safety.”
These good people? What the heck? The Inner Circle considered zeyshi an outcast nuisance.
“Oh, but I see that you are puzzled. Life is a delicate balance of rimoyu. We balance the two sides of each situation. I am Inner Circle. I reach out to the statusless people because they are half of what balances us. Without zeyshi, we would not be as strong as we are. They expose our faults and drive us to excel.”
The woman Nayu took this statement without emotion. In her shoes, I would have found it patronising, but whatever the zeyshi were, they did seem to subscribe to that two halves to a whole thing: ichi and ata-ichi —those who were privileged and those who were not. They were both part of the same society and each accepted their place in it.
A young zeyshi boy came into the room with a stack of bowls and put one in front of each of us. He looked old enough to be an early adolescent, with his hair all shaved off. Like the adults, he wore a grey shayka but his belt was plain, and his upper arms, protruding from the fabric, bore fresh, red-rimmed tattoos. When he came to our side of the table, Nicha said quietly, “The Delegate needs green-coded food and non-acidic water.”
“Water?” someone said, the tone incredulous.
Some people laughed.
I was informed by a few people at the end of the table that zeyshi did not drink water. They drank zixas, and, according to Nicha, that was an acquired skill. It was served in tall glasses, each with no more than a thumb-width of vile blue fluid that breathed white vapour. I’d seen Coldi drink it in Barresh, where some bars served it. You had to let it stand for a bit and swirl it around. The vapour would crawl up the sides of the glass and ooze over the edge. The idea was to hold your breath and drink, because the smell would knock you flat. I had a fair guess that it would kill me in five minutes. The fact that it could not be served in anything other than glass was probably a fair warning.
Another boy came in, carrying a tray which he placed in front of me. It held two bowls: one with grain, the other with a fragrant sauce that made my mouth water.
“You’re sure this is green-coded?” I asked Nicha, in Isla.
Thayu held her comm over it. The screen flashed. “Yeah, it is.”
The water arrived on a separate tray, a single glass covered in condensation. I moved the scanner over it and it came up as marginally safe. While the others took their zixas and started the game of swirling and sloshing, I sipped carefully from the water. It tasted metallic and quite bitter. I was very thirsty but didn’t dare drink all of it in one go.
The two boys went around the table serving everyone. Both of them took great care to serve Risha with bows and spoke with formal, polite pronouns.
The talk at the table was polite and confined to non-offensive subjects. Normally, Coldi custom was that you got straight to business, but never while sharing a meal.
That woman Nayu kept watching me. Occasionally, she consulted with the Aghyrian woman next to her, who had not been introduced to us.
Risha reminisced about some events in his youth that meant nothing to me. Everyone, young and old, listened with rapt faces. When I was very young and living in New Zealand, we had my great-grandmother come to a family dinner at our beach house once. To me—I must have been four or five—she looked ancient, with blotted, pigmented skin. She’d had a stroke and was very hard to understand. She was also deaf and didn’t hear a word I said. I had received a scooter for Christmas and was most upset that my mother got angry with me for riding it down the hall. It was raining and I couldn’t go outside. The adults were all sitting around the table, listening to this woman talk about the war or something, even if she kept repeating things.
That was how I felt about this gathering.
No one interrupted Risha, who was the great-grandmother at this gathering. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have guessed that the zeyshi had agreed to work with the Inner Circle, yet there were so many layers of networks between the zeyshi and the Inner Circle that this was impossible. The whole situation was utterly, utterly strange.
During the meal, no one spoke of the events in the Inner Circle, and no one asked. I wanted to bring it up. I was burning for news. I’d been out for two days. What had happened in that time? But I sensed an unspoken code that the events should not be mentioned and that politics should not be discussed. Meanwhile, I was sharing a table with the Aghyrians who had probably made the claim on Asto. I needed to talk to them, desperately.
Thayu would sometimes look at me and shake her head and motion for me to stay quiet.
Just what was going on?
“Anyway,” Risha said, while getting up from his seat. He met my eyes briefly. Everyone stopped talking. “I’m very tired so I’m going to leave you. You’ll be safe here while you make all your plans.”
I didn’t want to make any plans. My frustration broke through. “We had planned to leave as soon as possible. I need to speak with the people who made the claim on Asto, and then we want to get back into the city to a place from where I can leave as soon as possible. So please, I ask to speak to someone representing the Aghyrians here. Please, I’m asking for your support.”
Several people at the table took in sharp breaths.
Risha regarded me with a curious look. “Young man, you can discuss whatever you want with these people here after I’m gone.”
So he wasn’t going to support me. Moreover, he was just going to ignore this issue in a detached sort of way. You youngsters can decide what to do. And no one here pressed him about it. Wasn’t he supposed to run the army? Wasn’t he one of Ezhya’s seconds?
He shuffled around the room, stopping at each person and putting a hand on a cheek here or touching a shoulder there.
People bowed, expressions of reverence on their faces.
As when he had arrived, he came to me last. “Come, I will show you something.”
We followed him out the door. I was burning with frustration. There was something going on here that was beyond me.
In the foyer, Veyada and Sheydu were still waiting with Raanu. They had now been joined by Natanu and the rest of Ezhya’s guard. They all stood in one corner of the room while the poor zeyshi guards held their ground in front of the door.
Risha ignored all of them, and shuffled to the far wall, where he ran his fingertips over the stone. In the smooth stone I could discern carved shapes, but they were too eroded to see what the figures depicted.
“This section of tunnels is part of the old city of Aghyr,” he said. “You are now standing in the birthplace of all of the human species. When Asto was hit by the meteorite, Aghyr was buried under layers of dust. These corridors would have been part of buildings before they provided us with shelter and underground river beds. These people invented many things that allow us to live as
we do today. Look at how many years have passed, and collective humanity has barely recovered from the great blow to that civilisation.”
He walked a bit further. “These people were smart. Look at this. Here you can see a map of the city. A central area with roads leading out like spokes. Not much like we have today, with the circles. The Aghyrians used spokes, we use circles and barriers. Our society can’t flow outwards. The pressure builds behind the walls, and builds and builds. Somewhere, some time something has got to give, don’t you think?”
I opened my mouth—
“No, don’t tell me, young man. Think on it in the days to come: which method do you think works better in society: spokes or circles?”
My frustration boiled to the surface. “I’m trying to arrange for Ezhya to stay in power and for you to maintain your position. We’re quite in a hurry. I want to speak to the Aghyrian zeyshi. I’d like some help, if you can.”
Much too direct.
He met my eyes. I had often suspected that the gold flecking in Coldi eyes became more prominent with age, and that seemed correct. His eyes were almost luminescent gold with it.
He touched my shoulder in a gesture of superiority. “Young man, you mean well, but you need to learn a lot.”
And that was it, all the support I was going to get from him. I felt like screaming I’m risking my life for you and this is the way you thank me? but I couldn’t do that. For some reason, he had no guards and a little voice of decency spoke inside me that it wouldn’t be right to be rude to this gentle old man.
He bent down to Raanu. “You, little pebble, recite as many of your father’s commands as possible. Try to remember them while you’re on your way.”
She nodded fervently, her eyes wide.
Risha spoke to Thayu. “You protect the young man. He’s an outright fool, but he means well.”
To Nicha, he raised his hand and touched his cheek. “Look after your mother.”
Then he bowed to the guards and shuffled into a passage to the left.
Chapter 18
* * *
I WANTED TO run after him, but Thayu held my arm.
“What the hell is going on?” I spread my hands, rolling my eyes at the ceiling.
“Shhh,” Thayu said. “You’ll get to talk to the zeyshi now.”
“But it would have been so much better if Risha was also—”
“Shhh.” Her expression was serious. She continued in a soft voice. “Listen, this is what we learned when we went with Asha: when the Exchange went down, Risha challenged.”
I stared at her, then down the passage where the old man had just vanished.
“Risha?” That was ridiculous. But then . . . why was he here? I put the facts together. “He challenged, but he didn’t win.”
Thayu signalled yes.
And he somehow managed to escape being killed. But then who was in charge of his half of Asto’s society?
“The inner hub went into lockdown and wouldn’t let him through. His had been a quick plan and he didn’t bring enough people or firepower to bash his way through.”
Ah, I saw. That was Raanu’s doing. That was also why Risha was still alive. He wouldn’t have been had he been defeated by Taysha or another challenger. Was that why the zeyshi guards had stopped Raanu going into the dinner room? Risha had been kind to her on his way out, though.
What had he said? Something about remembering her father’s commands?
Thayu continued, “After the challenge, Risha’s own associations started breaking up. He was forced to dismiss his guards. That’s why they were wandering around the building looking lost.”
“What about your father?” I asked.
“He said that as soon as we went into the building, he felt the realignment of the associations. He was going to challenge.”
“And I guess he didn’t?” Shit, another break in the network.
She signalled No.
“Where is he?”
“He’s safe.”
That wasn’t really an answer, and Nicha gave her a sharp glance and looked at the two zeyshi guards.
Thayu explained further in an even lower voice, “I was angry with him, because he’d promised you not to challenge. So I . . . locked him in the apartment’s bunker.”
I took a sharp breath. “No, Thayu.” What did that action mean to her and the hierarchy?
“My loyalty is with you and Ezhya. I made it look like an accident. He doesn’t know I was angry with him. He doesn’t know I did it. That particular door is prone to falling shut without notice. People have been locked in before.”
“Now he can’t help us either.” Nicha’s tone was dark.
Thayu snapped at her brother, “Don’t worry. He’ll have found his way out by now.”
“There was no need to do that.”
“Yes, there was. I don’t want him to be killed and I don’t want to be the Chief Coordinator’s daughter. He’s got enough enemies not to last very long in that job either. I’d rather have him around.”
Nicha was going to argue back, but I jumped in. “So that’s why there was no diversion?”
“Yes,” Nicha said.
“There never was going to be one.” Thayu’s eyes flashed.
“How do you know that?” Nicha shot back at his sister.
“I know him much better than you. I’ve lived with him most of my life.”
I stared at her, horrified. Did she mean that her father had lied to me all that time? Had he only wanted to use my visit as a distraction for his own ambitions? “Tell me, why does your father hate me so?”
“He doesn’t. He sees you as a rival.”
“For what?” That was ridiculous. It was not as if I could do any of the things he did. Like lead the Asto air force.
“He says your presence disturbs rimoyu. He says he feels it.”
“Do you feel that, too?”
She shrugged. “I’m not my father. He feels what he feels. I can’t feel the same things.”
There was a small sound behind me. The rebel leader Nayu had come to the doorway and stood watching us, leaning against the door frame, her tattooed arms crossed over her chest. It was probably not such a good idea to discuss all this in front of her.
She regarded me silently. Her eyes blinked. “I thought you were here to discuss the claim.”
“I am.” I tried to focus. I needed to talk to these Aghyrian zeyshi while I was here, but reasons to do so were falling apart around me. Hell, by the time the Aghyrian claim came up in the gamra assembly, everything I did now could be irrelevant.
And damn it, I was not going to let that happen if I could help it. I didn’t know how, but I would support Ezhya while I still could.
We followed her back inside the room, where people were still eating. I sat down, but I was no longer hungry. The Aghyrian woman across the table glared at me. She had always known why I was here and now was the time for the business that Risha no longer wanted to be part of. Natanu and the other guards had also come into the room. There were no seats for them, and they took up position at the far end. Raanu stood amongst them, looking very serious. It would have been funny had the atmosphere not been so tense.
In the silence, Nayu asked, “So, visitor, you wanted to talk to us.” Her voice was rough, as if she was old as the desert itself. The previous indifference had made place for careful hostility.
“I want to talk to the Aghyrians here.” I met the Aghyrian woman’s eyes. “Is that your ID on the claim? Are you Evala Sadet Arwan?”
She gave a low hiss, and I presumed this meant I was right.
“If you know this, you also know the convent
ions of using our names. You are no friend of mine, foreigner.” Her voice was clearly female, unlike that of female Coldi.
“So what do I call you? I don’t recall that we’ve been introduced.”
“For you? Vanu.”
All right, that made what she thought of me pretty clear.
“I’ve spent a lot of time recently talking to Aghyrian interest groups. I’ve asked for all interested parties to contact me to be included in the discussion of future ownership of land on Asto. Why didn’t you come forward?”
Another low hiss. “Those people you call Aghyrians do not represent us. They have never suffered through the hardship. They have never suffered at the hands of your precious Chief Coordinator. They have never been hounded out of their houses, refused education and treatment at hospitals. They have never seen their families killed or sent off to work camps in mid-space or on other worlds.”
“A lot of those things happened in the past. You are doing well enough today.”
“No thanks to any of those so-called kinsfolk. Oh, they’ve been here. We could come and join them, they said. Just do this blood test. We only take the people with the best results, however they define those results. To us: no way. Aghyrian or zeyshi, they don’t see that it’s the same thing. These people . . .” She waved her hand at the others at the table. “Are my family. Would you leave your family because some fop says that I can take part in their great breeding program, but my family can’t?”
She let a silence lapse.
“So, what? We hear that these rich boys over there in your plush capital are negotiating away our right to claim the land and world that is ours, so what do we do? We claim, before they take the right away.”
Her eyes were like black holes boring into me. She stuck her chin into the air, as if defying me to argue.
I didn’t.
From her point of view, this was absolutely the right decision to make and it voiced some of the unease I’d had about the Aghyrian group in Barresh. That group needed to be broken open, so that we could see what their interests were, or even just who their leaders were. These people had some very valid points and I needed them at the negotiating table in Barresh when the hearing started. I would need to employ extra legal advice and Ezhya—