by Ann Leckie
“He won’t speak to us. It’s probably better that way. The Omkem consul was so aggressively condescending I’m not certain I could take any more of it, from her or from Hevom.”
“I keep thinking about finding Excellency Zat,” said Ingray. “Most of the time I think I’m all right and it won’t bother me anymore and then I’ll be doing something else and just remember it. Remember her there.” Her back against the slender tree trunk, the blood at the corner of her mouth.
“It’s like that,” said Deputy Chief Veret, gruffly but, she thought, with real sympathy.
“I don’t want him to go free, either. But it’s not up to us.”
“I’m aware of that, Miss Aughskold,” e said. “I just wanted to say it. I just needed someone to hear it, and it seems I’m not going to be able to say it outside this office.” E was silent a moment. Looked over at the wall where the slowly brightening plaza in front of Planetary Safety was displayed, the sky above still a deep, dark, early-dawn blue, the glow behind a row of buildings across from where they sat the first traces of sunrise. “I wanted,” e said, turning back to Ingray, “to be sure that it was said. When Pahlad Budrakim went to Compassionate Removal, do you imagine that no one was aware of what e said, yesterday? That outside Hwae the Budrakim vestiges are well known to be fakes? I’ve been thinking about that. I wasn’t there for Mx Budrakim’s conviction, but I cannot believe that not one of the prolocutor’s many opponents didn’t think of using that as a weapon against him. And in the capital there’s an entire Planetary Safety office that investigates forgeries and frauds. And I requested access to the records of Mx Budrakim’s arrest and trial and there is not a trace of anyone having looked into the claim that the Garseddai vestiges were fakes from the start. Even though, by the prolocutor’s own statement, Mx Budrakim initially made that claim in eir own defense.” Deputy Chief Veret gave a sharp, disbelieving hah. “Their jobs are as subject to politics as mine, I don’t doubt. And I can’t blame anyone for staying silent, when their own reputation and livelihood are threatened. But no one protested, no one said anything. Looking back all I can see is the dozens of people who were apparently content to send an innocent neman to Compassionate Removal because of Ethiat Budrakim’s political ambitions. I want someone to know. I want someone to know that I think it was wrong. That it’s wrong to set a murderer free, wrong to shuffle Pahlad Budrakim off to the Geck instead of dealing with the fact that e’s here and not in Compassionate Removal, and dealing with the fact that e was apparently wrongfully convicted from the start. Dealing with it legally, I mean, and not just a few days’ breathless news items that’ll be forgotten the next time one of your lot throws a large enough party or wears a new hairstyle.” E sighed. “And look at me, protesting to you and no one else. Certainly not anyone who’ll actually do anything about it.”
“I’ve been wondering, actually,” said Ingray, “why my mother didn’t do something with it.” She probably could have asked Nuncle Lak. It was possible e wouldn’t have told her. “But really, the next step would be asking what else was fake.” As Pahlad emself had already pointed out. “It’s easy to dismiss things people say outside Hwae. They don’t understand, or they’ve got some reason to insult us or think less of us. But it wouldn’t be like that, would it, if it were our own Magistracy Committee. It wouldn’t be so easy to dismiss.” She raised her cup of serbat to take a sip and then, self-conscious, lowered it again. “In the parkland, just before … just before Excellency Zat went up the hill, Pahlad asked her who she was, if her theories about where the ruin glass came from turned out to be true.” And also asked why it had been worth so much time, money, and effort to find that proof. “And I had never really thought about it that way before. Who are we if our vestiges aren’t real?”
“You never thought of it before,” said the deputy chief, “because nobody has ever really questioned your being who you say you are. No one has ever told you your own vestiges are false, or that they mean you’re not really entirely Hwaean.”
“People have told me I wasn’t really an Aughskold,” Ingray pointed out. Defensive. Feeling insulted for some reason she couldn’t name. “I came from a public crèche.”
The deputy chief said nothing. And Ingray thought of what e’d said before, about people saying e was surprisingly well-educated, or calling eir religious beliefs superstition. Which she’d done herself, just hadn’t said it aloud. She wanted to take back her words, say she was sorry, but she didn’t know what she could say that would make it any better, and besides, she was still stung, and wasn’t sure why.
The office door opened, and Taucris came in. “Excuse me, Deputy Chief. Can I borrow Ingray a moment?”
“Of course,” said Deputy Chief Veret. “We were done here anyway.”
“I put in an order for breakfast around the corner,” Taucris said. “It’ll be here in about twenty minutes.”
Ingray rose. “Thanks for our talk.” Still searching for the right thing to say. “I’ll think about what you’ve said.”
E said nothing, only gave a small nod and a brief wave of eir hand. Ingray followed Taucris out into the hallway.
“I didn’t really need you for anything,” Taucris said, when the office door had closed. “It’s the end of a fast day for em and e’s probably got some prayers or something e needs to do at sunrise. Same with breakfast. I could have brought it with me, but the deputy chief can’t eat for another fifteen or twenty minutes. There are allowances for if someone has to work, and the deputy chief doesn’t like to make a fuss, but most times it’s easy enough for me to manage things so e doesn’t have to worry about it. Oh, and breakfast is from the same place that did supper last night. They’re the only place nearby that will make things for the deputy chief without butter or milk, without making a face at you.” She hesitated. “It does mean some extra time sitting with me in my office. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh,” said Ingray, with a smile, “I don’t mind that at all.”
13
It was past noon before the committee reached its decision, and another hour before Pahlad was brought out of the cells, once again wearing the green-and-white tunic and trousers e had borrowed from Ingray, the spider mech beside em. Tic—really Tic, Ingray was sure, but Ingray couldn’t ask, not in the hallway outside the deputy chief’s office, or on the walk down to the lobby. “It’s all yours from here, Miss Aughskold, Mx Budrakim,” Deputy Chief Veret said. “I’ve already referred all questions directed at me to the litigation committee.” Through the doors Ingray could barely see the black stones of the plaza through the waiting crowd of news service mechs, and even actual people from the news services, all standing the prescribed fifteen meters from the entrance.
“Goodbye, Deputy Chief,” said Pahlad. “Thank you for having me, the last few days. Everyone was very polite, and your food here is better than what I had in my home district’s Planetary Safety headquarters. And at least Excellency Hevom won’t be getting away with murder.” The committee’s decision not to hand Hevom over to the Omkem ambassador hadn’t been publicly announced yet, though Hevom himself had already been escorted into the Planetary Safety building through a side entrance and would be in a cell within the next few minutes if he wasn’t already. It was only a matter of time before the Omkem ambassador managed to make his objection public.
“I don’t see the groundcar,” said Ingray.
“It’s there,” Taucris replied. She was standing just behind Pahlad. “They’ll have to move out of our way. Even the people will.” Though they could legally come closer than the mechs could.
“It’ll be all right,” said Pahlad. “I’ve done this before. And I suspect that if Ingray hasn’t done this particular version of it, she’s certainly had to face a crowd of news mechs at some point.”
“Not quite like this,” admitted Ingray. “But yes.” Taucris, who was going along with them, wouldn’t have to say anything at all. “Are you ready? Are you sure you want to stop for them?” They c
ould all four of them—Pahlad, the spider mech, Ingray, and Taucris—just walk straight ahead to the groundcar.
“Oh, I definitely want to talk to them,” replied Pahlad, with a smile.
The moment they stepped out the door, the clamor surrounded them, echoing off the nearby buildings so that the crowd sounded larger than it was. Above, bright green and red and yellow against the blue sky, hovered several airborne news mechs, rising and falling on the mild breeze, always just outside the legally allowable distance. After Ingray had been out in the dark all night, and indoors until now, the sunshine felt strangely incongruous, even unreal. The sound of the shouting mechs resolved into comprehensible words. “Mx Budrakim! Mx Budrakim!” And Ingray was suddenly disappointed not to hear her name, even though she had been dreading it the moment before.
“I don’t answer to that name,” announced Pahlad, in a clear, loud voice. E stopped, four steps outside the door, and Ingray, the spider mech, and Taucris stopped with em. “I’m Garal Ket.”
Despite how loudly e’d spoken, none of the news mechs had seemed to hear it through their own noise. But as Pahlad stood there, Ingray and Taucris and the mech beside em, the crowd gradually quieted, shushing each other to near silence. “I don’t answer to that name,” Pahlad said again, eir voice carrying to the news mechs this time. “My name is Garal Ket.”
For just the briefest instant all noise ceased, the mechs motionless but for the bobbing of the airborne ones, the few actual humans frowning, puzzled, and then the Out and About in Urade mech said, “Mx Budrakim!” and the clamor started up again, echoing across the stones of the plaza.
Pahlad—no, Garal, Ingray supposed—looked at Ingray, then back at the crowd of mechs, and began to walk forward, the spider mech close beside em. “Mx Budrakim!” called the mech nearest em. “Did you kill the Omkem Excellency Zat?” Garal ignored it. Taucris stepped ahead to wave the mechs in front of them aside.
“Mx Ket!” called a voice from the back of the crowd, pitched higher to carry over the general noise, expertly aimed to echo off the solid façade of the Planetary Safety building, Ingray thought, and probably turned up just a hair over the legal volume. “Mx Ket, did you kill Excellency Zat?”
Garal stopped abruptly and looked a question at Ingray.
“Arsamol District Voice,” she said, quietly, as all the other news mechs fell hopefully silent.
“I did not kill Excellency Zat, District Voice,” e said, loudly and clearly, for everyone to hear.
“Mx Ket!” cried the District Voice mech again. “We saw a recording of you telling Prolocutor Budrakim that you had never stolen the Budrakim vestiges, that they were frauds from the start. Is this true?”
“It is true, District Voice,” said Garal. “I did say that; the recording that was released is accurate and unedited, at my request. Why don’t you come up front here and walk us to the car?” The few humans in the crowd gave involuntary cries of protest. “Aenda Crav,” said Garal, eir tone mild but eir voice still loud enough to carry halfway across the plaza, “and Thers Rathem, and you, Chorem Caellas, you all flew here from the capital this morning so you could shout questions at me in person, but you can’t bring yourself to use the name I want to go by. None of you can, apparently, except for District Voice here.”
District Voice’s bright orange mech pushed its way to the front of the now-quiet crowd and came stepping right up to Garal. “Thanks for the invitation, Mx Ket. Miss Aughskold. Officer Ithesta. And I take it this is the Geck ambassador to the Presger? Honored to make your acquaintance.”
The spider mech, which had already fixed a half dozen of its eyes on the mech, said, “What is? What is this thing?”
“It’s a mech from the District Voice news service,” said Ingray. “Piloted by a human reporter. And if you don’t want to answer her questions, just say that and she’ll leave you alone.” With a significant look at the orange news mech.
“But you can’t just decide what we call you,” protested Chorem Caellas, a short, stocky woman from the most popular of the planetary-wide services.
“I’m not talking to anyone but the District Voice,” said Garal, as Taucris shooed the mechs away from the groundcar.
“Miss Aughskold!” cried a news service mech, starting a desperate chorus of Miss Aughskold from the others. And suddenly, just as she’d felt slighted when they’d called for Garal and not her, now she wished they would just ignore her. But she knew how to handle this; she knew what it was like, the babble of questions, the mechs pressed close to each other all around, and all she had to do was keep her expression pleasant and not say a single word, or even look directly at any of the brightly colored news mechs.
“If the prolocutor were here,” said the District Voice mech as Taucris opened the groundcar’s passenger door, “none of them would need to pay any attention to you, they’d just talk to him.”
“If they could get what they wanted from the prolocutor,” replied Garal, “none of them would have come all the way here to talk to me in person. If it’s all right with Ingray and Taucris, you can ride with us to the transport that’s taking us to the elevator.”
“And the Geck ambassador?” asked District Voice, collapsing its body down to half its height and clambering into the groundcar after Garal and the spider mech.
Ingray got in herself. “I notice you got into the groundcar before you asked about the ambassador’s opinion,” she observed before Garal, beside her, or the spider mech on the floor, could answer. The news mech had taken a seat opposite Garal. “And look, you were worried about what would happen when the big services got here.”
The District Voice mech gave an amused little chirp. “Thanks for helping a girl out, Ingray. Hey, Officer Ithesta, am I going to get anything besides the official statement from the Deputy Chief of Serious Crimes?”
“You aren’t,” said Taucris, sliding in to sit next to the news mech and pulling the door closed. “So you just pretend I’m not here, all right?”
“Right, right,” agreed the District Voice mech. “So, Ambassador. We’re all having trouble understanding why you’re saying Garal Ket is Geck. I mean, we all understand why e’s agreeing with you, but that’s another thing entirely, isn’t it.”
The spider mech turned all its eyes on the news service mech. “I do not want to answer questions.” It sat all the way down on the floor of the groundcar, its legs curled beneath it. “Garal Ket is Geck.”
“All right then,” said the District Voice mech, quite cheerfully. “So, Garal. How did you manage to get out of Compassionate Removal? The place is built so that no one can get out, right? All one-way entrances? And it’s guarded, isn’t it?”
“I won’t talk about getting out of Compassionate Removal,” replied Garal pleasantly. “I’ll talk about being in, if you like. And of course I’m more than happy to tell you about the Garseddai vestiges.”
“That’s a pretty shocking allegation you made in that recording,” District Voice said, still cheerily. “How can you …” The orange mech paused. “Wait! The committee has just ordered Excellency Hevom to be arrested for the murder of Excellency Zat! And here I thought you were doing me a favor letting me go with you!”
“We are,” said Ingray. “Tell the other District Voice reporters not to rush over to the house. Hevom has been gone for an hour or more; there’s nothing to see and you won’t get to talk to him.”
“And the deputy chief isn’t going to say anything more about it than e already has,” put in Taucris.
“Oh, Ingray,” said the news mech. “You are a jewel of the district.” It turned its attention to Garal. “So, Mx Ket, what I’d really like best is to sit down with you and talk about the situation with the Budrakim Garseddai vestiges. I’d love to do an in-depth piece on that. But we don’t have time for it, so instead I’ll ask you why you felt like you had to claim that the Rejection of Further Obligations is a fraud.”
“Because it is,” said Garal. “Not the words, no, we have the draft
s of the resolution, we have recordings of the Assembly sessions where it was hammered out. But in all those recordings there’s no sign of anyone making a physical document. Not like the one in the System Lareum. There were vestiges made, of course; all the representatives who were at those sessions got a specially made copy that they did all physically sign, but there never was one actual original.”
“Are you claiming we’re still obligated to the Tyr Executory?” asked the District Voice mech.
“Not at all. Just look at the history of the document in the System Lareum. About four hundred years ago Tauret Valmor was nearly broke and about to lose her seat in the Second Assembly. Her name was an old one, and one that was indeed there during the drafting of the Rejection, but there were questions about whether she held it legitimately—the Tauret Valmor just before her had died on the way to one of the non-Hwaean outstations, without giving eir name to an heir. The new Representative Valmor returned to Hwae claiming the elder had given her eir name just before e died, but there were no witnesses to that. But of course, her predecessor had told her about the secret storage compartment where the family’s most precious vestiges were kept, including the actual original of the Rejection of Further Obligations, which of course e never would have told anyone but eir actual successor, and of course there was a nice detailed account of how it had gotten into Representative Valmor’s possession to begin with. The donation practically founded the System Lareum; no one had wanted to give up anything really significant before that. It was a magnanimous gesture, and it went a long way to securing Valmor’s Assembly seat, not to mention the fortunes of the next few Taurets. The most obvious giveaway is the lettering, which is nearly a century too late for the supposed date of the document. Whoever Valmor commissioned to do the work should have been more careful, but I suppose it doesn’t matter, because it worked. But there are other problems with it, including the way such an important vestige suddenly appeared, when no one had even suspected it existed before that, and appeared right in time to be useful to the person who produced it.”