Ambassador 6: The Enemy Within

by Patty Jansen

  Hmmm. Another tick against Jemiro.

  So far, Jemiro had not acted in a suspicious way. In fact, he seemed rather thick to me. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he was putting on an act, but if someone did want to act so as not to draw suspicion to themselves, then they would not portray themselves as a person as weird as Jemiro, would they?

  Sheydu, Reida, Deyu and Telaris hadn’t turned up yet.

  I felt nervous throughout breakfast and let the chatter of our company wash over me. Thayu and Nicha were probably the only ones who noticed, and they didn’t say much either. Both ate a lot more than I did, which wasn’t unusual.

  Towards the end of breakfast, when I sat sipping tea, a member of the hotel staff came to tell me that someone was waiting for me.

  I rose and went to Abri. She, too, seemed a little quiet, her hands folded on her knees. It had to be intimidating to her, knowing that she was appearing as a witness in a process she didn’t understand, while also carrying the expectations of the tribe, to get justice for crimes against the Pengali, on her shoulders.

  I had to admit that the prim dark blue shirt, albeit very proper, didn’t look natural on her and she kept pulling the sleeves as if the fabric irritated her. Veyada came with me as well, and Mereeni.

  He glared at her.

  She glared back at him and said to me, “Why does he need to come?”

  Veyada said to her, “I’m a lawyer just as much as you are.”

  And she addressed me again. “He knows nothing about local laws.”

  “That is not for you to decide,” Veyada said. “I know all laws well enough that I can make all legal notes for our association, and none of this is any of your business anyway.”

  I called out, “Stop it, stop it!”

  Veyada looked down.

  “What is going on? Just settle whoever is superior, and stop acting like this.”

  “I’m sorry. It is unprofessional of me. I will try not to let it happen again.”

  That reply disturbed me. That was not the measured, well-educated, emotionally stable Veyada I knew, and it disturbed me, because this went into that deep secret area that I could never come close to understanding, that governed Coldi relationships to each other: the all-pervading sheya instinct. In this case, it kept misfiring for Veyada, since Mereeni didn’t even have the instinct.

  Well, this meeting with the lawyer was going to be interesting. I made sure that on our way out of the dining room, I walked in between those two.

  We gathered in a little group in the hallway.

  I said to them, “I hope you are all ready to start today.”

  “I am,” Veyada said.

  “I am,” Mereeni said at exactly the same time.

  And then they eyed each other over Abri’s head.

  Abri pursed her lips, oblivious to the uneasy exchange. “This is a strange place.” Her eyes were so large they were like mirrors, showing me my own reflection.

  “Are you unhappy about anything?”

  “People tell us not to do so many things. People ask strange questions.”

  “Yes, but answer them truthfully, and they will be happy.”

  “They don’t want to hear our story.”

  “They do. They just have their own processes in dealing with it.”

  “I need to ask my daughter to come. I need to get Ynggi with—”

  “This is not the official trial yet. Today, we’re just meeting a person who is going to tell us how the process is going to work.”

  She frowned. Her tail wriggled behind her. I thought it indicated a state of uncertainty.

  Kita came to the door to the dining room, looking into the hallway. Ynggi was there, too, and Idda, wriggling her tail as well.

  That was evolution in action. A black and white banded object attracted attention, even in dim light. Fast movement indicated distress. Others were cued to act on it.

  Damn. Clearly this morning’s episode with the fishpond had shaken them more than was evident on the surface.

  I attempted to put them at ease. “This won’t be the official meeting. I will make sure that you can all come to the court hearing. I will promise that.” They might have to hide Idda and give her something to make her sleepy, but I’d make sure that the tribe’s customs would be adhered to. That was the very least I could do for them. "Today, I will take just Abri and Ynggi. I want Ynggi to check how well Jemiro translates."

  They agreed with solemn faces.

  Veyada and Mereeni had gone ahead to the foyer and already waited there, each on a different couch, keeping as far away from each other as possible. Jemiro stood at the edge of the pond with his hands in his pockets.

  There was also a woman in a long pale coat, standing in front of the window. That had to be the assistant to Conrad Martens. She had been looking at the street or the canal but turned around when we came in.

  She was tall, slender, perhaps in her late thirties or early forties. She had straw-coloured hair, hanging down in two straight curtains on both sides of her head. Her eyes were pale blue and unusually far apart.

  Her face showed no sign of emotion when she spotted Abri, although her gaze lingered on her longer than me.

  “Mr Wilson, I presume?”

  “That is right. This is the witness, Abri, her assistant, Ynggi, and my legal team, Veyada and Mereeni.” Team, ha, ha, ha. “And this is Jemiro Pakiru, our official translator.”

  She glanced at Jemiro and her eyes widened briefly. I made a guess that Jemiro’s outfit did not pass the acceptable test.

  “My name is Lenka Trnkova, assistant to the prosecutor. I’ll be running you through the court procedure and witness account today.”

  “Do you work for Conrad Martens?” I had hoped to finally meet the man. He seemed a reasonable person and could help us get some issues sorted. That of communication, for one.

  “Dr Martens is no longer assigned to this case.”

  What?

  “No one told me about this. I spoke to him only. . .” It would have been a couple of days ago, a week at most, and there was no indication that he’d leave. “Why did no one tell me?”

  “Just an internal clash of commitments. It shouldn’t affect you or the witness.”

  “But why?” There went my hope to have someone represent us who had experience with off-Earth people.

  “Just a rescheduling, nothing major.”

  “Does this happen a lot?” I was trying to gather the pieces of my rattled mind. Conrad Martens had told us that not many other lawyers had his level of experience.

  “A bit.”

  Not half as often as she said it would, I bet.

  “So who is the new prosecutor?”

  “Dr Timothy Cross. He is extremely experienced and fair, and I’m sure that if Mr Davidson is to get convicted, he is one of the best to put together the case. He has received all the notes Dr Martens has made and will be carrying on with the work in the same manner.”

  “Why hasn’t he contacted me?”

  “The work will be continued in the same manner. You are a very busy man, and he will be following Dr Martens’ notes, so he probably judged it better not to disturb you.”

  Rubbish. “I’m not particularly happy about this. Let him know that when you see him. We’d also like to see him as soon as possible.”

  She nodded, her lips pressed together.

  Damn it, Conrad Martens was known as having represented gamra people fairly in previous cases. He appeared to have some understanding of the different customs.

  Ms Trnkova took us to a small conference room on the ground floor of the hotel, which contained only an oval table surrounded by chairs and a light board on the wall, which was off.

  We sat down. I ended up facing the window, which looked out over a courtyard at the back of the building. A delivery truck was unloading bags of laundry.

  She turned on the light board. It displayed Abri’s statement that I had taken in Barresh and recorded in the presence of an official gamra obse
rver. She went through every word and sentence of the statement, asking if Abri had anything to add, and trying to find ways to disprove what Abri had seen.

  Ynggi, listening through a translation device that allowed him to understand the rough meaning of the speech, signalled a few times that he thought Jemiro did a competent job of translating her words and Abri’s replies.

  Abri fidgeted through much of this and glanced at me several times.

  Then Ms Trnkova asked how well Abri knew Gusamo Sahardjo, and asked if she knew the value of sky stones—blue diamonds—on Earth.

  Abri said that she knew but did not understand why people made such a fuss over the stones. “They are only valuable in the land where they have grown. Kasamo knew that. He did not take stones. He taught our youngsters funny tricks.”

  Ms Trnkova went through the effort of explaining why blue diamonds were of so much value. Months ago, in Barresh, I had tried the same, but had given up. Abri would not understand why people would attach so much value to something that had lost its value by removing it from its place of origin and that was good for nothing except decoration. When you thought about it, that attitude held a good deal of common sense and also said a lot about Pengali. They became emotional over people and places, but cared little about property.

  Then Ms Trnkova went into how Abri had not actually witnessed the killing of Gusamo Sahardjo, so how had she concluded that he had committed the crime.

  Abri grew agitated.

  “You talk about this man. You talk about Kasamo only. Hairy face kill several of our people. No one ask about that. We did not see that he kill Kasamo, but we know he kill Pengali people. We saw it. We can prove it.” Robert’s victims had been Washing Stones Pengali, and I found it satisfying that in the face of a bigger enemy, Pengali banded together, even two tribes normally hostile to each other.

  “But the trial is not about that,” Ms Trnkova said.

  “It is what we saw. It is important that story is heard,” Abri insisted. “It proves that hairy face is a bad man.”

  “Well, I can ask.” Ms Trnkova’s voice sounded awkward.

  At this point, I probably should have reminded Abri that she had agreed to answer the court’s questions. I had already explained that the case would be about Gusamo Sahardjo and not about the murdered Pengali, that the story of those murders was not particularly relevant to the case in question, and that an additional case might well start later, if the Pengali could negotiate it with Nations of Earth.

  But what was the value of this trial anyway?

  The prosecution’s case was weak and they clearly knew it. They did not want to consider evidence that was stronger based on technicalities—the victims were not citizens of Earth and no Earth-based investigators had heard that evidence.

  So I asked why the murders of the Pengali were not included, and Ms Trnkova grew flustered. She said something about Dr Martens wanting to do that, but running out of time. It didn’t sound terribly convincing.

  Abri was unhappy, glaring across the room, her arms crossed over her chest. Her tail stuck out of the hole in the back of the chair and waved at waist height, occasionally producing a little snap.

  She spoke to Ynggi in Pengali a few times, and neither Ynggi nor Jemiro offered a translation. I thought I picked up the word “out” in their speech.

  This was not going well.

  I said to Ms Trnkova, “At least let her tell their story and record it.”

  Ms Trnkova agreed to do that.

  I felt sorry for her. I would have liked to ask her what she thought of the new prosecutor, but I guessed she wouldn’t be so unprofessional as to reply to that question, therefore I probably shouldn’t be so unprofessional as to ask it.

  So Abri described how young men from the tribe had seen the murders of the Pengali trackers. Apparently, when Melissa had gone looking for Robert because his wife had reported him missing, and a search of satellite footage had turned up the location of his boat, Thousand Island Pengali had been watching from a distance because the trackers were from the Washing Stones tribe and they were trespassing on tribal land. They had witnessed that Robert had shot the trackers as they were trying to escape.

  I had heard this story a few times before, and it had never varied. Pengali were known for their storytelling as means of communication.

  “To tell the story properly, we need betanka,” Abri said. “Only then can the truth be heard.”

  Ynggi nodded sagely.

  “We put it in betanka. Hairy face can respond. We will report truthfully to the Washing Stones elders. It will give us much karrit points that we need so that our craftspeople can come to Barresh again to sell our wares.”

  Wait—karrit were points that every Pengali, indeed every person, built up during their lives. There were points for good deeds, points for being honourable, for repaying favours, for always telling the truth.

  Word went that when the Pengali Office in Barresh had accepted electronic data systems, this was the first thing they’d done with it: make an intricate system of all the karrit points that every citizen of Barresh had. It, more than anything, determined how keen Pengali were to do business with a person.

  The Pengali themselves built up huge reserves of these points in their lifetimes, because the more points, the better the position in the tribe. The more points, the better the tribe would look after you when you were old and needed help.

  I’d never realised that not just individuals, but also tribes built up these points.

  Ms Trnkova said that she’d try to get the story covered. Clearly she had no idea what betanka was. I didn’t think she was unsympathetic, just hamstrung by the rigid process.

  The meeting was finished, and the delicious smells of lunch wafted into the room when Jemiro opened the door and was the first to leave. The Pengali left after him, followed by Veyada and Mereeni.

  I remained alone in the room with Ms Trnkova.

  “Unfortunately, we cannot cover crimes against non-Earth citizens,” Ms Trnkova said, her voice low. “I’m sorry, but we can’t. We’re not set up for that. I thought you would understand that.”

  “I do, and the Pengali probably understand as well.” At some level, maybe, hopefully. “But they want their grievances heard.”

  Those light blue eyes met mine in a brief moment. One human to another. She nodded. “I will see if I can put a word in. But do understand that if the story is told, it may not have any influence on the hearing.”

  “I understand. Thank you. I’m sorry about the trouble we are giving you.”

  A tiny smile crossed her face. “I’ve seen much worse. To me, the case is quite interesting.”

  She didn’t know by half how interesting.

  Then I asked, “One thing I’ve been meaning to ask. I was on that boat that came to the island when Robert shot at us and later at Melissa. I also saw the beisili throwing around Gusamo’s body, and I saw the camp where Gusamo spent the last days of his life. Why didn’t the prosecutor call me to the court? Make no mistake, I wouldn’t have been keen to do it, but it seems to me that I should have been called.”

  She looked at me with those pale eyes, and then looked away. “Between Abri and Ms Heyworth, the prosecutor must have considered that he had covered all the angles he needed.”

  “Must have?”

  A small shrug. “I don’t know. I’m a legal assistant. It’s his case and he makes decisions and has no obligation to discuss them with me beforehand.”

  “I understand, but if it were your case, wouldn’t you have called me, especially since I was going to be coming here anyway?”

  “Time in the courtroom is very expensive. We’re not encouraged to bring in witnesses who double up stories, and that’s to put it mildly.”

  So it was all to do with the bureaucracy of funding? I found that a bit hard to believe. “It wouldn’t have had anything to do with the fact that I don’t work for Nations of Earth anymore, would it?”

  “That certainly
makes things harder.”

  “But not impossible?”

  “Of course not. We’ve got Abri here.”

  “Or would it have been because I tend to say inconvenient things?” I could never say “convenient” without being reminded of its sexual double meaning in Coldi.

  “You would have been questioned on the case only, so I can’t see how that would have been a consideration.” But her cheeks flushed with red, which had a to be a disadvantage of being as pale-skinned as she was.

  “Well then, thank you. Will we see Dr Cross before the hearing?”

  “Oh yes, but the next step is to wait for the witness to be called.”

  “Will that happen this afternoon?”

  “No. You’ll get notice on the afternoon of the day prior to the hearing. Tomorrow maybe. If you haven’t heard by five this afternoon, then it will be the day after. We will send someone to pick you up from here and take you to the courthouse. When you get there, I will be there, and Dr Cross will meet you there, too.”

  “All right.”

  Ms Trnkova rose, turned off the light board and gathered her reader and put it in its case.

  But I wasn’t finished. I asked her, as casually as I could, “I heard that there is a large crowd gathered outside the courthouse’s entrance. Is that going to affect our ability to get in? The Pengali are not terribly fond of crowds.”

  She gave me a startled look. “Oh, the protesters? You don’t need to worry about them. You’ll have access to the back entrance of the building and you won’t have anything to do with them.”

  At least she didn’t deny that these people were there.

  “But what do they want? Why are they there?”

  “They are political activists, and they’re protesting about a matter unrelated to the court case. Mr Davidson and the Execo board run several mines of rare earths in various countries in southern Africa. Strange rumours are flying about the company’s involvement in the government debts in various countries, and controversy about the treatment of their workers. A collapse occurred in a poorly built mine in Namibia last year and a lot of people died. Their families demand answers and compensation. As I said, it’s got nothing to do with this case, but Robert Davidson is a recluse and this is the only way people can get a glimpse of him. They’re in for the publicity, but the whole area has been declared a dead zone for that reason. I guess you have noticed that.”