by Patty Jansen
Shit. I glanced over my shoulder at Federza. He didn’t appear to have heard Telaris’ news.
I lowered my voice. “So, mashara thinks that they were definitely after him and not me?”
He made a who knows? gesture. And then a quiet gesture.
I nodded.
“Can we move around inside this apartment?”
“Mashara advises waiting. The outside is not yet secure. Thayu and Sheydu are searching the garden and surrounding spaces. Then we will concentrate on resources inside this apartment.”
“Thanks, mashara.” They rarely gave me this much information about their operations. I guessed concentrate on resources inside this apartment meant the questioning of Federza and the staff.
“How much longer?” I stifled another yawn. I wanted Thayu and Nicha to come back to tell me what was going on elsewhere on the island.
“Mashara will notify everyone.”
And he was gone again. I returned to my position on the couch, while avoiding Federza’s questioning looks and Xinanu’s angry glare.
Reida gave a soft snort. He had fallen asleep on the couch.
Chapter 8
* * *
TELARIS WENT BACK to his work. He did give me permission to go into the hub as long as I didn’t go to the ground floor, and I wandered into its darkness and sat down at the central bench. I needed time to think. I didn’t want to face Federza and take part in the staring game between him and the rest of my staff, or suffer through prolonged uneasy silence or Xinanu’s contempt. Or Eirani’s fidgeting because all the dishes still need to be done. Apparently the hub had satisfied whatever my security had wanted to check, and the functionality had been returned. I stared at the flickering lights on the controls, barely registering their meaning.
Damn, I was tired.
How long before Thayu, Nicha, Veyada and Sheydu were finished going over the apartment and surrounding yard?
Every now and then I thought I heard footsteps coming closer through the corridor, but I was always mistaken or the person went somewhere else.
This was turning into a big, messy issue that was as clear as mud to me, and had dangerous elements if only I know what they were and who we faced.
Reida breaking into Federza’s office, potentially under orders of another association.
Nicha potentially tangled up with that association.
Federza fearing for his life, a fear that was justified by this attack, and this attack might have been carried out by Tamerians—hired by . . . who exactly?
The same Tamerians who had been searching for the source of that responding signal?
And the Asto army watched us all from above, sending warnings about their presence in the form of not one, but four supply shuttles.
What a mess.
Above all, the thought that I had to speak to Nicha, and quite urgently, sat as a brick in my stomach. Coldi people might be used to the question I know we’ve lived together for many years, but how well can I actually trust you? but I certainly wasn’t. By my reckoning, Nicha wouldn’t be either, if I knew him well enough, which I thought I did. But Coldi society had this habit of turning around and slapping me around the ears with my own ignorance.
I’d never had a reason to investigate Nicha’s mother’s background. He had said that he didn’t have a lot of contact with her anymore, and I believed him.
Most communication might have been disconnected from the hub, but I still had access to all the information databases.
I brought up information about Nicha’s parentage. His mother’s name was Tayanu and she came from the Inner Circle branch of the Palayi clan. She was a very distant cousin to Ezhya, but too far removed to have any importance in Coldi public life. I’d seen her once—Nicha had kind of fallen out with her, too—and she was a polite, very Coldi, unremarkable, high-ranking administrator.
There was nothing in her file that I didn’t already know, and her current employment—Asto’s water authorities—gave away nothing of her feelings, or the lack of them, towards the ruling leaders in the Inner Circle. Or, for that matter, on the subject of zeyshi or their claim. Apart from the fact that zeyshi lived in the aquifers, and that she was responsible for those aquifers.
Hmmm.
Of course she was Thayu’s mother, too, but Thayu had never lived with her. And Thayu was younger than Nicha and had probably been handed over to her father soon after birth. She had been raised by military people. Their mother was an administrator and politician. Thayu had been educated in a strict household, while Nicha’s upbringing had been much more relaxed. Brother and sister appeared to never have spent much time together until Thayu came to live with me. Maybe it could be that Nicha . . . felt a little lost.
And that had left an opening for him to re-establish contact with his mother, who might then have roped him into a chain of command that I didn’t want in my association. This could also be why Nicha had suddenly changed his contract and where Xinanu came into the picture. I definitely didn’t trust her.
Did the link that ordered Reida to break into Federza’s office come through Nicha or Reida?
Damn, my whole concept of safety had been overturned.
Who could I trust?
Nicha should be in that group, but at the moment he was not. Not until I had that talk with him, and to be honest I didn’t know where he stood right now, especially if Federza chose to take the matter of Reida breaking into his office to court, as was his right. The only consolation was that it would be the Barresh court, which limited the damage to me, but would be worse for Reida. Having chosen the young man as subordinate, would Nicha defend him? And as superior of both of them, what was I supposed to do?
I felt sick.
So, the people I trusted were:
Thayu.
Veyada.
Sheydu.
Evi and Telaris.
That was it.
Bunker down and re-group. I had to sort this issue out. Yedama. Regrouping of the association.
Shit. My heart was hammering. I never left Nicha out of anything.
I took the reader from my pocket and sent each of those people on my list a message. Meet as soon as possible to reconsolidate. I didn’t have to state the venue. The highest security meetings were always held in bathrooms. Part superstition and part because bugs had more trouble picking up clear recordings in large hollow-sounding rooms.
But before I met with the others, I had to make sure that Federza had left the apartment or at the very least left this floor. Then I’d make sure to put Nicha and Reida out of earshot by putting them on the door duty. It was a shitty arrangement, but I wasn’t going to talk to Nicha unless I could get him alone. I was not going to embarrass him in front of the rest of the team, or Xinanu.
When Evi told me the apartment was secure, I went back into the living room where Raanu had just woken up and sat looking bleary-eyed on her blanket.
The soft conversation in the room died the moment I came through the door. All those people looked at me, people who I had considered part of my household—well, except Federza of course. But the kitchen staff and the office staff, and Reida and Deyu. They’d all been unfamiliar to me when I came, and I’d learned to work with them. Was I back to not knowing who I could trust? That shook me badly.
“Mashara says it is safe to move around in the apartment.”
“Finally,” Eirani said. She rose from the couch. “I was afraid we’d have to spend the night here. Come, young lady.” She took Raanu’s hand.
Raanu had her other hand in front of her mouth. She was yawning so much that tears rolled over her cheeks. For once, she had nothing smart to say.
The other staff also rose and went out.
Reida had woken up, and attempted to sneak out the door with the others.
“Reida.”
The young man turned sharply to me. Oh, yes, he was expecting a good talking-to.
“Go and see Nicha. Tell him that I’d like you and him to relieve Evi and Te
laris at the door. Tell both of them to see me.”
He nodded, visibly relieved, and bolted from the room.
My eyes met Federza’s, since he was only one left in the living room. “I’ve been informed that there has also been an attack on your apartment.” I kept my pronouns as impersonal as possible.
His sand-coloured eyes met mine. He nodded, but said nothing.
“Were you aware of this?” A little bit more personal.
“No, Delegate, I was not.” He pressed his lips together.
“Apparently, the front wall was blown out.”
“It’s all glass.” He took a deep breath and let it back out. “I guess guards are swarming all over it and they have the area closed off.”
“Probably. Will you have somewhere to stay safely overnight? I can get my people to escort you to alternate accommodation. We’ll make sure that the area is safe and that—”
“It’s all futile.” The stress almost made his voice crack.
“Not if my security has anything to do with it.”
He shook his head. “I can run, Delegate, but they will get me in the end.”
“You’re talking about Tamerians, right?”
He said nothing, but didn’t deny it either.
“Tamerians who are here on the order of some of your kinsfolk who disagree with you for some reason that makes them very angry.”
“Actually, it’s me doing the disagreeing. It’s no joking matter, Delegate.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that it was.”
He breathed out a sigh. Relief? He took in another deep breath, shuddering.
He continued meeting my eyes in a kind of desperate way that told me that there was a lot more going on in that head of his and we kind of looked at each other like that, as if neither of us wanted to start, or to reach out a hand, or even show sympathy.
I disliked the man. Ever since I’d first met him, at the uniform shop on the ground floor of this building, he had behaved like a slippery snake and pompous arse. He talked over people’s heads. He told half-truths, and never gave anyone any attention unless he thought that he could benefit from it.
And yet, here he was, broken and more afraid than I’d seen anyone in a long time. Too scared to tell me what was going on.
In the little sliver of the hall that I could see from my position, I noticed Thayu walk past in the direction of the bathroom. They’d be waiting for me. Evi and Telaris had already gone past and they were still officially on duty, and I couldn’t allow Nicha and Reida too much time at the door wondering why they’d been put there.
I took a step towards the hall. “Look, I have to go for a little while now. If you are really too scared to leave, I can ask my staff to put a spare bed in one of the rooms downstairs. I have a room that doesn’t have any windows, if that puts your mind at ease. I will come back later to talk.”
“Accepted.”
If he kept insisting on having the bugs turned off, I’d bring Thayu or Veyada into the room with me. Veyada probably. His memory was incredible.
I went into the hall, where I found one of the kitchen staff and asked him to instruct Eirani to take Federza down to the staff quarters and put him in the spare bedroom. The one without the windows, that the staff used as storage room. I debated asking the young man to lock the door behind him, but decided that would be a bit over the top and not appropriate for someone of Federza’s status. I asked him to watch the stairs instead, to make sure that no one came back up.
“Not even Eirani?”
“Eirani is all right, and anyone else who works here. Just not him. No one else while he’s watching.”
I hoped he understood. I ran into the bathroom, where my team already sat in the water. The steamy air hit me in the face.
“Any problems?” Thayu asked after the door had rolled shut with a clatter of wooden slats.
“Federza. Is that enough of a problem for you?”
She rolled her eyes.
“We have to talk to him,” Sheydu said. “I didn’t like the way he was behaving at the meeting. I think he knows who shot at him.”
“Tamerians,” I said.
She gave me a sharp how do you know that? look.
I dropped my clothes on one of the benches that surrounded the bathing pool and slipped into the water. “Thayu and I went for dinner. Afterwards, we decided to have a look at the location where the reply signal to the ship was supposed to have come from. We found three Tamerians in black council uniform—” The one council badge I’d seen had been dirty. Not a state in which I would have expected council workers to wear their uniform to work. “—who were out there looking for the source of the signal.”
“At this time of day?”
“It was immediately after dinner. Not terribly late yet.”
“In the dark?”
“Yes, it was very dark out there.”
“Tamerians have good night vision,” Veyada reminded her.
“They’d better, because we couldn’t see anything.”
Sheydu interrupted, in her typical blunt way, “Does this have anything to do with us, because, you know, I have a lot of work still to do tomorrow, and there is another meeting, so I’d like to catch some sleep if I can.”
“It does have something to do with us, in a roundabout way.”
Sheydu snorted. She didn’t like roundabout ways.
I told the assembled group about Reida, his break-in, his possible loyalty elsewhere and through him, Nicha. Thayu watched me, nodding occasionally, as if letting me know that I’d understood the matter correctly.
When I finished, there was an intense silence.
“Well, bugger that,” Sheydu said. “I thought this arrangement with those youngsters was strange, but I wasn’t going to say anything because, you know, you’re not Coldi and you might do things differently.”
Veyada snorted. “I’ve never known you not to say anything.”
Thayu said, “We’re not sure that there definitely is a problem, we only want you to be alert that there might be. If you find anything that points that way, report it to us.”
I added, “The stability of our association will be of importance in the negotiations. This household will be at the centre of the negotiations that will, to some extent, determine the future of Asto. Many people want to influence us. The Barresh Aghyrians had expected to dictate the agenda, and they were thoroughly gazumped by the zeyshi claim. Everyone is jostling for the best positions, trying to gather as much knowledge, as many claims and counterclaims as they can. We are a target. Someone obviously wants to discredit us with the Barresh Aghyrians and sends Reida to break in . . .” I held up my hands. Federza’s reaction didn’t make much sense in that line of reasoning. He was supposed to have been furious at me for sending Reida, and I of course would be caught on the back foot because I hadn’t sent Reida.
Sheydu still stared into my eyes in a kind of and? expression. I let my hands sink. “There are enough threats from outside our household. We don’t need any from within.”
She said, “Loyalty threats are hard. Because when loyalty is dubious, you can ask me many times are you still loyal, and I will say yes, even when we both know it’s not the case. I have too much invested in being here and living in this house. I’ll try to hang onto it for as long as I can. You won’t want to upset the entire association, and also, the reason for diminished loyalty may be temporary. Doing nothing is usually a better option until it is not, but those resolutions are rarely easy. The outside threats are easier to deal with. Let us work on those first.”
Veyada gave her a sharp look. “I presume we’re going to question Federza about what Reida could possibly want.”
I said, “It looks like Federza will be staying here tonight. Have you established anything about the state of his apartment?”
“The front has blown out. The gamra people are going over it now.”
Sheydu made a noise that sounded like idiots.
“For what it’s worth
, I think that Cory’s reasoning, even incomplete, makes sense,” Thayu said. It was quite unnerving how the sound of her voice made Veyada and Sheydu take notice and how they didn’t seem to have that reaction for me.
They will push me aside as soon as I become superfluous to their aims. In reality, Thayu was the leader of our association. I was just for show. That was why Nicha’s half of the association wasn’t working.
I said, “It’s my guess that Federza is afraid of people he knows, maybe even those within the Aghyrian community.”
“Why is that, do you think?” Veyada asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Because Federza has something these people want, or want to destroy?” Sheydu said in a bored voice. “Like: money. That’s always a good motive. We’re not talking about Coldi here. Their motives for fighting each other will be strange like that.” She glanced at Evi and Telaris, neither of whom had said anything so far.
Coldi didn’t fight over money; they fought over loyalty, partnership contracts, and, oddly enough, what we would call petty crime. Theft was a breach of loyalty, a much more serious offense than in most other gamra entities. In Evi and Telaris’ world of Indrahui, there were a lot of fights about honour and tribe. Indrahui were bigger experts on vendettas than the Sicilian mafia.
I said, “Whatever it is, we need to know with some urgency, because it will affect the negotiations, even if Federza has been relieved from his position as representative. We need to know why this happened.”
There were silent, grave nods all around.
“All right. What do we do now?” Thayu asked.
I wasn’t sure if she asked me or the group in general, but I had to think about it for a while. Everyone else was thinking, too, or maybe they waited for me to speak. Thayu gave a me a why the hell do you keep taking off your feeder? look. Everyone was tired and grumpy, and sure wouldn’t like the conclusion I was reaching. Hell, I didn’t like my conclusion.