An attendant assisted people with correct alignment in the elevator which would take us to the outer ring of the space station. If we didn’t choose the right floor to stand on, we’d arrive in a heap on our heads, she told us. We’d no longer need our slippers, as artificial gravity was well established. Most of us were old hands at the vagaries of space existence, but there were always a few who needed guidance. People who’d spent a long time on the truly massive stations, people who had been on Ubastis for years and years.
Micro-g makes for very polite travel companions. We bobbed about, trying to settle in. Even through my fog of distress the apologies in multiple languages made me smile. I did my very best not to send surreptitious fingers out to grasp the Beast’s sleeve.
Shaken by the encounter with the screener—could I properly call that an encounter?—I let the semi-familiar flow of the Lazarette wash over me when we stepped out of the elevator. Offworlders in clothes whether tight or absent, designed to display their genetic modifications, eyed the Ubasti surreptitiously. The Ubasti paid their visitors the same compliment. Did they envy each other? I saw an offworld woman wearing what looked like a hoopskirt cage covered in cello. Violet light illuminated her legs, which were long and slim. She was staring at an Ubasti woman dressed in a salwar kamiz the same shade of purple as the light that dramatized her own legs. The Ubasti woman, in the midst of what looked like a walken talk, shot back glances while simultaneously adjusting her earlink and holding her finger out for a SNAsign to take her blood.
Two handlers approached me through the press of people. We murmured pleasantries as they ushered the Beast and me to the waiting chambers. To my disgust, a couple of recorders from the Source detached from a group of offworlders and darted around us. I tried to ignore them, thinking instead of the two women I’d passed. How different were they? If they were to sit down and compare psyches, what would a Venn diagram show?
As far as I could tell now, that was my job. To find the overlap. To estimate to the best of my possibility wind direction, recoil, trajectory—always, the possibility of ricochet—and then shoot for the blind target.
Our preliminaries room was little more than a closet. The Beast suppressed his urge to pace and sat next to me while Mohammad’s full holographic image materialized in the space before us.
“So that’s the Beast,” he said. I looked up and saw the transmitter embedded in the ceiling. Good, a two-way. I didn’t fancy a canned meeting, where seeing a recording of Mohammad was no improvement upon a piece of mail.
“Sir,” the Beast said.
“How is damage control, Mohammad?”
A few moments of delay while the signal traveled round trip.
If we were to declare autonomy, I wondered, what would we have to pay to be able to afford this kind of communication?
“In place, as best as can be done,” his hologram replied. His expression of wary courtesy flickered at us, frozen in the data packet he’d sent. “Some viddies have been brought to the fore in Source media with positive revolution as a plotline, and they’ve seen decent traffic. There’re ringers out on boards talking about the problem of immigration and the People’s Party. Most of them are designated as moderates, but we’ve planted a few firebrands in there as well, to disseminate the concept of more radical methods. A light artist was commissioned and spun up a hologram of you and Commander Undset dancing, complete with soundtrack. I had it seeded in all Ubasti cities, to appear randomly. It’s charming, really. Colorful. Response is favorable.”
I leaned back with a sigh of relief. A hundred generations ago some ancestor of Mohammad’s must have been a potter, knowing just where to shift one clever finger, to squeeze, to lift, to shape as the clay spun on its wheel.
“It’s going to get even more difficult,” I said. “Perhaps you should find an imam’s speech on the beneficial tension between the ummah and the individual and leak it. And find something else on self-reliance. Something anti-technology. Remember that series a few years ago about the family roughing it on Earth?”
“We saw that in Mustaine,” the Beast said, surprising me. “They would’ve been dead if it hadn’t been for their pollution sinks.”
“Excellent point,” I said. “That’ll also remind people of why the Pokies don’t want easy immigration.” Feeling as if there was at least a little traction underway, I indicated send.
Quite some time passed in waiting. The Beast, as always, wore an imperturbable face, even when he caught me looking at him. How many times had I studied him before in hatred, in cold curiosity? What did I feel now when I looked at him? Was my desire real, or was it simply another example of all the varieties of manipulation that had been moving me into place? An old joke surfaced: just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
Just when I began to consider finding someone to ask whether or not a delay in the hearing was acceptable, Mohammad’s sigil changed. In between the pauses in his speech, he combed his beard with his fingers, as though reassuring himself.
“Hopefully they’ll only be interested in you, Vashti,” he said. “In your well-being, in your psychological standing. I hope this doesn’t degenerate into politics. It may be all this caution beforehand is unnecessary. But as a great explorer once said, ‘adventure is just bad planning.’ I’d rather plan and not need it than the converse. I’ve even got a few individuals planted for encouraging positive response through isopraxis in whatever audiences may gather around the public broadcasts.”
He stopped tending his beard and looked hard at me, through space, through the dance of matter. “The planet will be watching you, Vashti Loren. And you will be its voice.”
A blank room, gray walls, gray seats. This might have been the very room where I defended my choice four years before. Seven people waited for me, all in shades of gray. Was I paranoid in thinking that every single gaze was on me when I walked in? No, for I met their eyes with a smile and nodded to them all, and I saw how they all watched me cross to my chair in the middle of the room, before them.
In an attempt to encourage the illusion of camaraderie, there were no podiums, tables, consoles. They sat in a semicircle opposite me, and I fervently wished that there were a barrier between us, especially when I recognized Dr. Haas as one of the panel.
Now that she no longer wore Ubasti dress, but sat at attention in leggings and a batwing-sleeved corset tunic, she looked harder in a way, steelier instead of stonier. Her pincer gaze had not changed, though, that she had first trained on me in the medbay so many months ago. It tweezed at me, trying to pinch, to trap.
In comparison Zhádāo’s and Bearce’s shenanigans seemed gross and lumbering—a noisy distraction, while Haas had been able to sneak in and tear away chunks of information. How much had she gained, what would the People’s Party be able to metabolize to their own ends against us?
Bear down, I told myself. Don’t let them get control of you; don’t let them get in your head.
“Good morning, Citizens and guests,” I said. I flashed a particularly nasty smile at Haas. A slight insectile buzz echoing each word told me there was a general amplification employed in the room, which would enable me to hear my interrogators just as well as they did me.
“Good morning, Dr. Loren.” That was Laila Kisanghani, the only Ubasti I knew. Two other men I recognized as Ubasti by their dress; one other offworlder woman. Senator DeBeers was there, worse luck, whispering to another black-clad offworlder—who watched me all the while DeBeers hissed into his ear.
“Good morning, Dr. Kisanghani,” I said. “Do you think we could just dispense with the formalities and introductions and get on with it?”
DeBeers smirked. Haas stared at me; the other offworlder woman looked surprised behind her careful cosmetics. The offworlder man whom DeBeers had been whispering to leaned forward in an attitude of frank interest, elbows on the table.
Laila sighed and for an instant I felt sorry for her. “Vashti Loren, you are brought before a pa
nel of qualified individuals from both the Federated Galactic Bodies and the scientific colony of the planet Ubastis, to sit as the subject of a hearing for the purpose of psychological evaluation.
“You stand charged with turning lethal firearms upon multiple human individuals. You stand charged with the murder of one human being.”
I watched her calmly, trying to keep the justifications from crowding my thoughts. “May I ask a question, before we begin?”
“Of course,” she answered. Warily; she knew me well.
“The Beast—is his hearing concurrent?”
Haas shook her head. While she spoke, somehow I arranged my features into what I hoped like pleasant inquiry. “There is no hearing for it. Commonwealth law does not admit the genetically engineered constructs commonly known as Beasts to be self-determining entities.”
“Your pet’s not human, Mrs. Undset,” DeBeers said with a sneer.
I smiled. “Laila, you said this was a panel of qualified individuals?”
DeBeers made as if to stand up. “You see how intractable—!” His seatmate pulled him down.
“Dr. Kisanghani and other esteemed members of this panel, Senator DeBeers is a member of the People’s Party, and as such is prejudiced against me. I claim bias and request he be removed.”
“Denied,” Laila said. “Senator DeBeers is a renowned psychologist in his own right and so is qualified to be here.”
“And ‘Dr.’ Haas? She came to my apartment to sniff me out for the People’s Party as well. Is she a real physician?”
“Wait a minute, Dr. Loren.” DeBeers’s seatmate now smiled at me, a real smile, crows’ feet crinkling. “Does it improve the situation if I say I’m a member of the Pokies?”
I wanted to goggle at him, but I kept my expression schooled. Now I knew him. Salvator Taroush. From Moira’s party before I’d gone to accost the Beast. I felt embarrassment heat my face. “It does balance things out,” I managed.
DeBeers smirked. “Even he should be good enough for you, Doctor.”
The offworlder women wore identical expressions of amusement; all three Ubasti looked troubled, even the normally placid Laila.
“We’ll hope that this knowledge doesn’t affect your responses, Citizen,” one of the Ubasti women said. She took a moment to adjust her headscarf, tucking it back and smoothing the line across her forehead. I read irritation in every motion.
My response was automatic. “Senator Taroush, I’m very glad to finally meet you.”
“Under different circumstances, Doctor, I would believe you,” he said.
Salvator Taroush, son of Hassan Taroush. He was one who might empathize with my position—the position I was trying to extricate myself from.
“Mrs. Ximenez never did introduce us at her party,” he said, and then laughed at the expression on my face. “I tried to get to you to introduce myself, but you left before I could reach you.”
Good Christ, how would that affect his evaluation? Seeing the knife, me fencing with DeBeers, losing my temper . . . An apology was in my mouth and I shut my mouth hard before it could escape.
“I hope the evening was sufficiently entertaining,” I said instead.
“If I’d known someone was going to be throwing sharp objects in that room, I would’ve paid to attend.”
DeBeers glared at him and he returned an unrepentant grin.
Could it be possible that someone was on my side in all this? Could it be that I might not end up in disgrace and consigned to the rest of my life working underground? I allowed myself to take a deep breath and settled myself a little more comfortably in my chair.
All the assessors stated their names for the record; I followed suit. Laila asked me to describe for them what happened on the day of our encounter with the squatters, and I told them. From the walk I took with Zhádāo along the water’s edge to Bearce’s arrest. I left out, however, the Beast’s revelation to me there in the lake. About war, about his contact with Lasse, about all the forgotten . . . men in that oubliette left to rot.
I believed Moira now, on that score.
My evaluators tried to be impassive, but every time I spoke of a weapon fired, a blow thrown, a wave of feeling crossed their faces. Distaste. Disgust. Revulsion. I tried to keep my voice low, even; my face pleasantly relaxed, but how could I help thinking, how revolted would you be, nice “Dr.” Haas, if someone was trying to kill you?
That same nice woman looked down at her records, and in a moment of extreme and surprising emotion, flung up her hands. “And then you apparently lost your mind—”
Salvator’s voice a warning rumble: “Dr. Haas . . .”
“I’m sorry, Senator, but what other conclusion can I draw from the facts? After engaging in a lethal fight against these men—”
“They were on Ubastis illegally. With illegal weapons, as well.” I tried to be as mild as I could. “They used lethal force first.”
DeBeers put his hands behind his head and stretched back in a post of nonchalance. “Let me see . . . don’t I remember a certain individual saying to me at a party some months ago, ‘Blast whatever’s attacking me? If it’s not my legal prey object, it’s incumbent upon me to escape rather than defend myself, if it’s in my capacity to do so.’ Do I have that quote correct?”
“Self-defense trumps that,” I said.
Haas shot me a hard look and returned to her records. “You then attacked a member of your party and chased him—”
“It,” the auburn-haired woman broke in. “Let’s not get our pronouns confused.”
“‘It,’ dammit. Vashti Loren chased it, carrying yet another lethal weapon, and attacked it twice, provoking a retaliatory attack on her, which stopped only just short of murder.”
“Is it possible to murder an entity that has no legal standing and is not recognized as human?” asked one of the Ubasti men.
Both offworlder women glared at him. “Why don’t we eat meat?” the auburn-haired woman said.
I wanted to smile.
“An animal,” said Dr. Haas, “may not have legal rights. The genetic construct may not have legal rights either, but in Dr. Loren’s unfettered aggressive nature—which is well documented!—we see such violence that we have to take into account her intent, her state of mind, rather than necessarily the object of her belligerence. And where does it stop? She’s allowed to kill animals. Under the stipulates of your Patrol & Rescue, she’s allowed to kill fellow humans, which her past history shows us she does with wanton relish—”
“Oh, really; this is too much,” Laila said. A frown clouded her usually serene face.
“Too much? It’s not enough! Why this woman was allowed to maintain lethal weapons after what happened in Wadjet is utterly beyond me! I’ve seen them! Displayed on the walls of her apartment as if they were priceless art! She has those instruments of death within arm’s reach of her child!”
Numair’s voice slid to the fore of memory: We’ve spliced into L5’s network and broadcast a one-way feed down planetside . . .
“She is a Natch, after all,” said the other Ubasti man, mildly enough.
I tried to match his tone. Not easy with my heart slapping in my rib cage and the sweat starting in my armpits and groin. “I was exonerated, Dr. Haas.”
“How can anyone in the twenty-fourth century be exonerated for murder?” Even from across so many meters I saw her trembling, shaking with rage. “Damn being a Natch; you should’ve gone for DNA reassignment immediately. There was no excuse—”
“She would’ve been killed,” Salvator said. “She saw Dr. Undset killed in front of her—”
“And so she felt avenging the death of her unbalanced husband justified the slaughter of three other living creatures?” My vision ground down to only her. Unbalanced husband. My first impulse was to shoot to my feet and yell back at her—but wouldn’t that prove her point? Natch aggression. I forced myself to slouch, to cross my ankle over my knee, and yawn.
DeBeers frowned. “Dr. Loren, I’ll hav
e to ask you to show a little more respect for these proceedings.”
“Oh?” I rolled my shoulders, as if getting comfortable. “I thought I’d take a nap while Dr. Haas cycled the ad hominem attacks out of her system.”
Amusement fluttered across the Ubasti’s faces, even Laila’s. The woman next to Dr. Haas tightened her lips and would not look at me—in chagrin, I hoped. Dr. Haas herself met my gaze, her face flushed and her chin up. Embarrassed and belligerent, but I’d be willing to guess embarrassed only due to being called out in front of the others. If it were just her and me, we’d have a few more go-arounds.
I brought the chair and my feet down with a thump and leaned forward, bearing my gaze down on hers. “This hearing isn’t about my relationship with Captain Undset, just as Senator Taroush’s presence here isn’t about the fact that his father was Haroun Taroush. My husband’s morals aren’t on trial here. Only mine.”
I took all of them in with one pleading hand. “You know I have never turned a weapon on a human being except in self-defense or in the defense of another.” Except that goddamn knife of Joop’s. “You also know that the animals—”
“Sentient beings worthy of respect,” the auburn-haired woman broke in.
“And I do respect them!” Come on, woman, keep it together. I laced my fingers together and hoped they couldn’t see how the knuckles turned white. “I don’t frighten the animals I hunt, I don’t chase them, I never need more than one shot . . .”
My words trailed away as I saw how they all, even Laila, looked at me. With pity. Contempt, on the part of the offworlders—but chiefly pity.
“Why, yes; Dr. Loren, you’re the smoothest killer in the galaxy,” DeBeers drawled.
My face burned. Oh, how they must be spooning this up in front of the viewscreens.
“Dr. Loren, you are leaving out one important thing,” said the Ubasti man who’d spoken before.
I took a breath. “Enlighten me.”
He looked even more apologetic, if possible. “You say you’ve never turned a weapon on a human being except in self-defense. Yet the episode with the Beast: you clearly attacked him, without the need for self-defense or the defense of others.”
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