by Patty Jansen
“We’ll soon be done here,” I said to her in a low voice. “Then we can relax at my father’s. Do you still want to go there?”
“Of course I do.” She sounded as defensive as hell.
“All right. I just thought I’d ask.” Because you look terrible, but I won’t dare ask if you think you can do your job. Stupid me. I knew that Coldi women experienced wild mood swings and profound periods of crankiness and hysteria when they were pregnant. Why did I still pretend that it wasn’t happening?
Because it was a damn inconvenient time for it to happen, that was why.
I needed her, especially when Sheydu, Telaris, Reida and Deyu were still away. Strange how quickly I’d learned to rely on Reida’s inquisitive mind and Deyu’s quiet industriousness.
It seemed we were missing some people at the breakfast table. I counted them off in my mind. Thayu and Nicha were there. Veyada was there, with Reya and Mereeni, Evi was there and so were the other two Indrahui guards, who were talking to Devlin. The Pengali were all there, even Idda, who was starting to get cheeky again and I wondered how we were going to keep her out of harm’s way at the court.
Jemiro.
Where was he?
“Have you seen Jemiro?” I asked.
Thayu shook her head.
Karana said, “No, Muri, I haven’t seen him at all today.” She had become a lot less timid during this trip.
“The door to his room was still closed when we came down,” Eirani said.
But I had seen him in the morning, when I’d come down to check out the Pengali. “He was in the foyer early this morning.”
I rose from the table and left the dining room.
Jemiro was no longer in the foyer. I asked the receptionist if she had seen where he had gone, but she had not.
I went upstairs to the top floor. I knocked on the door to his room, and there was no reply.
Well, damn. We needed him today. But damn, where was he?
I knocked again, harder this time. “Jemiro, open the door! It’s almost time to go.”
I thought I heard a sound on the other side, a soft moan.
Oh damn it, he wasn’t ill from eating some compound unfamiliar to keihu bodies? Something in the food or the air, or some cleaning product. That did happen, and the possibilities were endless.
I ran back down two flights of stairs to reception.
“Do you have a key to room twenty-nine? One of our people has locked himself in his room and we think he is unwell.”
“I can call an ambulance.”
“Maybe later.” For an off-Earth person? Never. “I’d like to check first.”
She came upstairs with me, because she could not give anyone their master entry card, which was fair enough. So she opened the door for me, and remained in the hallway as I pushed the door open a fraction.
“Jemiro?”
The air the wafted out of the apartment smelled stale. It was dark inside. I pushed open the door further, so that I could look into the room. I had expected a big mess, but the room was neat, a pair of shoes stood just inside the entrance,. The door into the bathroom was open. It was dark inside.
I said again, “Jemiro?”
A soft moan drifted from inside the room, around the corner of the bathroom, where I couldn’t see. I slowly advanced into the room, now wishing that I’d brought a weapon, but as usual, I’d left it in my pack that sat on the shelf in our room downstairs. Should I go to get it?
I picked up the metal wire rubbish bin instead. I didn’t know what to expect, but if he was going to have a go at me, I wouldn’t be completely defenceless.
I went far enough into the room to be able to look inside. The bed was neatly made—almost untouched. His little bag stood on the shelf against the wall. An empty glass sat in the middle of the table.
“Jemiro, where are you?”
Then I saw him, jammed into the corner of the room in between the bed and the wall that separated the main room from the bathroom. He sat with his back against the wall, and his knees drawn up to his chest. His eyes stared into the distance.
I dropped to my knees in front of him. “What’s wrong?”
His lips moved but I couldn’t make out the words.
“Come on, Jemiro, say something to me.”
“Is he all right?” came the voice of the receptionist from the hallway. Of course she didn’t understand keihu.
I said to her in Isla, “I think so. Thank you.”
I toyed with the idea of asking her to tell the others to come upstairs, but they’d probably come up anyway.
Meanwhile, Jemiro wasn’t unwell exactly. He was just . . . muttering.
“She’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill me.”
Hang on. “Who is going to kill you?”
“She’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill me. She’s going to—”
“Stop it!” I put both my hands on his shoulders. He was so thin that I could feel the bones under his skin.
“She’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill me—”
“Who is going to kill you?”
He fell quiet. He turned to me, the expression in his eyes bewildered, but at least he was properly looking at me.
A soft sound near the door indicated that various people from my team had come up. Thayu was there, as well as Veyada and Eirani.
Jemiro looked from me to them. He frowned. Almost as if he saw us for the first time.
“What are you all doing here?”
“We’re about to be called to the court. You didn’t come to breakfast, and I was worried.”
His eyes met mine, bewildered for a fraction of a second before his face went into a neutral expression. “No, no. No reason to worry. I’ll be ready.”
“Even if we’re about to leave?”
He took in a sharp breath, but then he pushed himself up. “Yes, yes, I’m getting ready. Just you wait. I’ll look my very best. The court case, yes? It’s finally on now?”
Once we were in the corridor, Thayu gave me a strange look. “What was all that about?”
I spread my hands. “He appeared to have some sort of fit, and now he’s embarrassed and trying to cover it up.”
“It could be a reason that no one talks about him much,” Devlin said. “The old families are still very hesitant about people they consider to be defective.” His voice oozed with distaste.
Just that word, defective, breathed old-fashioned attitudes of rich households with entitled sons, who thought they were the best. Devlin had grown up in that world.
“Did you noticed how he was speaking differently from his usual accent?” Eirani said.
“Speaking differently?” I might have noticed it if I hadn’t been so concerned about him or if my keihu had been better.
“Yes, less formal. More like the young guys on the street would speak. Not the best ones either. The gangs and louts.”
“Is that where he grew up? Maybe when he had his fit, he forgot how to speak properly.”
“You ask me, Muri, that man worries me. There is something not right about him.”
Yes, he worried me, too, but so far, we had not been able to discover any wrongdoing on his part.
Chapter 14
* * *
JEMIRO TURNED UP dressed in his formal clothes in the dining room not much later. He grabbed a bread roll off the table, and I felt like asking him if he was sure that he could eat it without it giving him any strange spells.
He had gone back to his taciturn act and I had to admit that I was getting more annoyed with him than I should, and with Nations of Earth for having instead that we needed another translator. I couldn’t imagine he was going to do a good job. All this, while we had Ynggi, who was bound by the code of the tribe to translate truthfully to the best of his ability, and we had Reya who was a certified Coldi to Isla translator.
I got a message from reception that Ms Trnkova turned up while most of us were still in the dining room. I was ready to go, even if ma
ny in my team weren’t, so I told everyone who needed to come to the courthouse to get ready while I went to see her.
I took special note of the Pengali, but they showed no sign of distress, and I hoped they had finally accepted that bringing a fish was not necessary.
Ms Trnkova was dressed in a long dark coat today. It was no longer raining, but it still didn’t look warm outside. She greeted me with a silent nod.
“My condolences on your colleague.”
“Thank you.” She closed her eyes briefly, as if fighting back tears. “He was a good man. There are not many like him.”
“I am truly sorry. Have the police made any progress in finding who did it or why?”
She gave me a piercing look, but then her expression softened. “No, they haven’t.”
“Was he married?”
“No, he lived alone. He divorced long ago.”
“I am sorry.”
A silence passed between us in which I felt that she wanted to say more, but didn’t. Because she knew we were being watched? Because she wasn’t sure where I stood? Because she didn’t know if saying more was appropriate?
Then she changed the subject. “I’ve sent you the tickets to the courtroom.”
“I saw that, but there must be a mistake, because there are only two.”
“It’s not a mistake. It’s very busy in the gallery. There are lots of journalists, observers and other people who want to get in.”
“Wait—the court went through all the effort of getting us here with a large group of people, and then lets only two of us into the courtroom?”
“Sadly, yes.”
“But that is totally unacceptable. I negotiated for the witness to attend based on the understanding that she could bring what they consider a proper tribal representation into the courtroom.”
“Dr Cross said that he only needs the witness.”
He only needs . . . what the hell. Why should we care what he needed? We had an agreement. “What about the interpreter? The court made me go through millions of hoops to get someone they approved of. Do you know how hard it is to get a Pengali interpreter?”
“The interpreter can come, but I’ve been told there is room for only two people in the public gallery.”
“But the witness needs her delegation, and she needs me, and we have the right to take an observer who will record the proceedings on behalf of the Exchange. There is an agreement between Nations of Earth and the Exchange. And we have to have at least one of our legal team in the room as well.”
“Well, I’ll have to ask—”
“Yes, do ask.”
She looked sort of desperate , pleading. Tired, too. “But I can’t guarantee anything.”
“If these people can’t be in the courtroom, the witness won’t be there either.”
She nodded nervously. “Yes, yes, I understand.”
But did she really?
Then Thayu came in with the Pengali group, all of them neatly dressed, including Idda in her bright orange get up. Kita carried Abri’s small travel bag, and by the look of things, the contents were quite heavy. I wondered what was in there, but then Veyada and Amarru’s lawyers came down the stairs, followed by Evi and the guards and Jemiro, Devlin and Nicha.
“Here we are. Let’s go.”
A van waited outside the hotel’s entrance. We could easily have walked, but I guessed being driven was safer and, besides, the weather still wasn’t great. We all piled in. There wasn’t enough room, and the driver complained about seatbelts—seriously, for a trip that would barely take us around the block? We managed to fit in and finally we were off.
The van went to the top of the street past the station and turned left and then left again, and then right, through a narrow alley closed off from the street by a forbidding metal fence that slid open at our approach. It led between two buildings into an underground parking area.
The lift into the court building wasn’t big enough to take all of us up and walking didn’t appear to be an option, so the Pengali, Nicha, Devlin and Reya went up with Ms Trnkova; I waited with Thayu, Evi and Mereeni until the lift came back.
Sounds of footsteps leaving the cubicle drifted from above, as well as the distant murmur of a lot of voices. Thayu was checking something on her reader. A map of the building, I thought. I looked over her shoulder. A map of the building indeed.
“The main entrance is here.” She pointed to the other side of the building at the level above us. There was a superimposed image of the front entrance, with a glass facade, steps leading up to a forecourt and a fountain with a statue of arms sticking out of the water, all grasping each other. That was said to symbolise the equalising power of justice. An icon indicated that there would normally be a live feed, but the link had been disabled so that we couldn’t see what happened there.
The lift returned, we got in, and it took us one floor up to the ground floor atrium, a light-filled hall, with glass on the far side where the rest of the party waited.
Through the glass doors at the other side, I could see the forecourt of the building, filled with a colourful mass of people and tents and placards. A group of Africans were playing drums, clapping and singing.
Abri was looking at them.
A burst of shouting broke out in the forecourt when people outside spotted us in the hall. People crowded in front of the glass wall, held back by security guards. They waved and cheered—at the Pengali, I presumed. Two Africans in colourful dress were hitting hide-covered drums with big rhythmic thumps.
Ms Trnkova took us around the corner, through a hallway with a smooth polished floor to a meeting room with a large table surrounded by chairs.
She found a jug of water and cups and, while we sat down, a man came in. He was extremely tall to the point of having to stoop while coming in the door. His hair was flecked through with grey, his skin olive brown and eyes dark. He had a flat nose and a deep groove in his chin.
Ms Trnkova said, “Mr Wilson, this is Dr Cross, the prosecutor.”
The man nodded stiffly and sat down.
Well, he was not terribly friendly, was he?
The Pengali were all still standing near the door.
When they met someone new, they considered it polite to chat a bit. This was not limited to Pengali, save that most people would not talk about fish and fishing.
Kita now came forward with her travel bag.
Dr Cross looked up at her, frowning with a why are you interrupting me expression.
Kita placed the bag on the table in front of Dr Cross.
Dr Cross turned to me. He looked impatiently puzzled. “Whatever is the meaning of this, Mr. Wilson?”
“When meeting someone new, especially someone in an official position, it is a Pengali tradition to give a gift.”
I didn’t say that the gift usually involved a freshly caught fish for consumption by the group. I had no idea what was in the bag.
Kita pressed her hands together in front of her chest and stepped back, bowing her head.
Dr Cross pushed down the sides of the bag.
Inside was a big saucepan with a lid.
Frowning deeply, he lifted the lid—and oh, the poor seagull inside skittered around, trying to climb up the sides and failing to find any purchase with its webbed feet. Its wings had been tied down with a napkin that the hotel used at the table, but as Dr Cross pushed the pan away, it came undone, and the bird took off, leaving behind a greenish deposit over the inside of the pan and one of Dr Cross’ hands.
Dr Cross yelled out, pushing his chair back. “Get that bird out of here!”
The seagull flew around the room, panicked and squawking.
Two security guards came in, and as they opened the door, the seagull flew out, into the hall and the foyer.
I met Abri’s eyes.
“He let it escape.” The tone in her voice was horrified.
I wasn’t sure what to say. What had she expected people to do with a seagull? Eat it?
“We notic
ed that people here like live creatures. We thought it would be a good present.”
“It was good thinking,” I said.
“But now they have to catch it again. We didn’t tie it up well enough. I don’t think he liked it.”
“It’s not your fault. I think you did well.” They certainly did well to catch a seagull alive in the first place.
“It is not well.” She let her shoulders sag. Losing karrit points was a painful thing.
A cleaner had come in to remove the evidence of the seagull’s presence from the table. They had a box of anti-bacterial wipes for Dr Cross’ hands.
The Pengali looked on. I guessed they were perplexed by someone who considered an animal so dirty that he needed to wash his hand with stuff that made Kita wrinkle her nose.
Dr Cross asked the cleaner to bring a new jug of water, because apparently also the water was contaminated from the seagull flying over it. The cleaner said he’d bring a new jug, and left.
The security guards shut the door, cutting off the sounds of the guards shooing the poor panicked bird out of the foyer.
Dr Cross sat down again, his face prim. Without asking about further mention of the incident, he launched into the details of the questions he was going to ask Abri during the hearing.
Jemiro was hard pressed to keep up, because Dr Cross was quite specific in telling Abri how to reply to each possible question.
Abri listened to Jemiro, and occasionally made a remark like, “I saw him there and not there.” And they would argue over Robert’s precise movements at the time of Gusamo’s death.
The discussion took me back to that time I’d found the bottle with Gusamo’s note on the beach, at a time I could probably still have saved him, had I known where to look.
Robert was also in the area at the time, and they had both taken part in trips organised by Clovis Keneally, who lived in Barresh. Neither of them were there for the first time.