Rogue Stars

by C Gockel et al.

  Eva’s father stood staring out the window, hands clasped behind his back. When I came in, he held out his hand, but grinned sheepishly when his gaze fell on my bandaged palms. “I guess I shall not shake your hand today.”

  A thin man, from whom Eva had inherited her sharp nose, he wore his hair and beard cropped short, both now more grey than brown. His eyebrows, long and bushy, had been fashioned into two tufts that stood out from his forehead like a billygoat’s horns. A smile wrinkled the skin around his eyes. “I heard you got caught up in a bit of trouble.” His accent was not as heavy as Eva’s mother’s.

  “Just a bit,” I said and we laughed. As ambassador for Poland, Eva’s father would know all there was to know. He had probably spent all day talking about it.

  He asked, “Any news about the president?”

  I shook my head. “Sadly, no.”

  He heaved a sigh and we let the worry hang unspoken between us. “Drink?”

  “Sure.” One did not refuse a Polish host’s liquor. But oh, I had trouble keeping my eyes open in this stuffy room all of a sudden.

  “Sit down,” he said, gesturing at the velvet-covered couch.

  “Thank you, but I think I’ll stand for a bit, or I’ll fall asleep.” I went to the window and looked into the sad remains of the garden. An electric bus rumbled through the street. I wondered where that white car was. “Foul weather.”

  “Yes.” Eva’s father opened the door to the cabinet next to the hearth. “Will be a lot better where you’re going, I bet.”

  “Don’t know that I’d call it better.” Barresh was hot and muggy, but I loved its violent monsoonal storms, with winds that ripped millions of petals off the trees that grew everywhere on the islands and whirled them about like pink clouds. I could almost smell the ever-present scent of hot springs—rotten eggs, some said, but for me, the smell signified relaxation in one of the many public baths. Me and Nicha, and some strange fruity drinks.

  “Oh, Dad, don’t talk like that.” Eva had come up behind me, her warmth and perfume radiating from her. “I want tonight to be fun, so don’t you talk about leaving all the time.”

  I stroked her cheek with my thumb, staring at her moist lips. “Don’t worry. I’ll talk about whatever you want.” Oh, how I wanted to kiss her. Somehow, I would have to get a few private moments tonight.

  Her father pulled a bottle out of the cupboard and put it on the table. Clear fluid sloshed behind a white and red label. I cringed. Not the Sliwowica—that stuff was seventy percent alcohol and I was one hundred percent jet-lagged and didn’t think that would make a happy combination.

  Eva’s father again bent into the cupboard, then turned to Eva and said something in Polish about there not being enough glasses.

  Eva started across the room, but her father called her back. He said something else in an even lower voice, also in Polish, but I picked up the word chans, accompanied by a glance towards the hall.

  Eva’s eyes met mine before she opened the door, and I hated the apology that hovered in them. She didn’t need to apologise for her father’s opinions. Like so many of the older generation, he was so afraid of everything to do with gamra, he didn’t know how to use the word properly. The derogatory term “chans” had come about when Coldi on Earth disguised themselves as Chinese and had used the last name Chan so much that real Chinese people with that name had scrambled over themselves to change their name to Chen or Chang. My guards weren’t chans.

  The fire popped in the silence Eva left behind.

  I decided to bury the issue by facing it. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you by bringing the two men here. They’re my assigned bodyguard.”

  The horned eyebrows rose. “Nations of Earth security doesn’t assign you a guard, after what you’ve witnessed?”

  “They are my guard. Half my contract is paid by gamra.”

  Eva’s father snorted. “Lunacy. The entire world is turned upside down by this cowardly attack. You should stay here until the emergency council has come out of their meeting and has advised the general assembly tomorrow.”

  Oh. Fucking. Hell. The emergency council was sitting. That’s why I couldn’t get onto Danziger.

  Fuck. Heat rose to my cheeks as I stared unseeingly out the window.

  I should have been invited. Wasn’t that why they were paying me—to act as mediator? Who else currently in Rotterdam could put forward the gamra position, the position of the accused?

  I brought my hand to my pocket, remembered I’d given my comm unit to the guards, and then just stared, speechless. Even my ears glowed with anger. Damn it—damn it!

  Eva’s father was still talking. “. . . The whole situation is not stable and I don’t think Danziger should have acted without approval of the emergency council.”

  “I am a mediator. I do not thoughtlessly abide by what Nations of Earth says. It is my task to help solve difficult situations, not perpetuate them.” My reply came out far too sharp, but oh damn it, I was angry. Was Danziger already shunting me aside?

  “You would be advised to adhere to the emergency council resolutions.”

  “The emergency council does not dictate my actions.” The president did, and Chief Delegate Akhtari—all the conditions were spelled out in a long document that had been picked apart and rewritten so many times that I might as well have stamped it on my forehead. And now they’d thrown out all those negotiations and done their own thing without my involvement.

  “Then it should. After this . . . this talk of conspiracies in Barresh—”

  “It’s a movie!”

  “There is plenty of truth in it. Danziger should ask for an explanation of what happened to Kershaw—”

  “There was an explanation. Twenty pages of it, circulated to all Nations of Earth delegates.” He would have seen it, too.

  “Hmph. We are meant to believe what they said without being able to check for ourselves? No, it tells me that they aren’t playing honest. Isn’t it telling that someone from the Union has found the supposed fake allegations in the movie close enough to the truth to take revenge?”

  “That’s not true.” My voice was much more heated than he deserved.

  “Prove it, prove it!” Eva’s father banged his hand on the table with each word. The plates rattled.

  “I will, if I’m allowed to do my job.”

  Eva’s mother interrupted. “Stop it, stop it, with the crazy politics.”

  Her husband glared at her in the tense silence.

  I sank down on the springy cushions of the couch, wincing when my hands touched the armrests. Normally, I liked discussing politics with Eva’s father, but today’s issue had lost its appeal.

  Eva came back with the glasses. Her father poured and handed out the drinks, still in relative silence.

  Eva settled on the couch next to me. “Are you tired?”

  Exhausted. I’d lie down and fall asleep immediately. “When I’m with you, I’m never tired.” I kissed her forehead.

  “I know. You just keep going and going.”

  Her father said, “That’s the good thing about you. With a lot of hard work, maybe one day you’ll come to your senses.” Your senses being his side of politics. And that, accompanied with a bittersweet smile, was as much of a compliment as I was ever going to get from him. Strangely, I liked the man; he was always true to his word and his principles.

  I smiled at Eva. “I have to rest some time.”

  How much would I give to do it next to her, to watch the news together and talk about it without her father’s opinions, to drink a glass of wine, to peel off that dress. . . . I kissed her again, softly, on her nose.

  Eva’s father cleared his throat and raised his glass. “Well, let’s just say: to the start of your job.”

  Eva clinked her glass against mine. Her eyes glittered. Oft-spoken words of worry passed unspoken between us.

  As the tiny sip I had taken burned its way down my throat, Eva’s mother said, “We have news, too.” Her tone was laden with
meaning.

  Eva straightened, her hands jammed between her knees.

  Her mother breathed in self-importantly. “Eva will graduate when you come back.”

  “She will . . .” I met Eva’s eyes, brimming with tears.

  She nodded. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Yes, it is. I thought you wouldn’t be finished until next year.”

  “So did I, but I’ve heard I can do both Global Economics and International Law in the next semester. It will be really busy, but you’re not going to be here, so I thought . . . Isn’t it great, Cory?” In her eyes lay the words she didn’t say: Now we can get married.

  I stared at her. With the alcohol and the lack of sleep, my head felt even woollier than before. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to marry Eva—there was no question about that; I had signed the official intent. There was nothing barring us. We both had White permits, and Eva had passed her genetic test. I had stressed that my mother had died of a non-hereditary cancer, waving a declaration signed by my father four years ago. I remembered that visit to Lunar base, where he worked back then. His mouth had been twitching when he read through the document, and he’d mumbled things like, We don’t know that it was non-hereditary . . . and What is Earth coming to? This is the biggest load of moondust I’ve ever seen . . . and, Well, son, if you think it will get them off your back . . . Then he had scrawled his signature on the pad, and impressed his ID.

  He’d returned the reader to me and said, I guess you really love the girl.

  And I did. It was just that, at the moment, with all this mess, with Nicha locked up and me unsure what was happening, a wedding was the last thing on my mind. So soon, so definite. I swallowed. “So . . . when is the graduation?”

  “I can put it off until you come back. Then we can have a graduation party and . . .”

  No excuse for delaying.

  Stiff and sore, I slipped off the couch, taking Eva’s hand in my bandaged ones. “Eva, when I come back, will you marry me?”

  “Yes, Cory.” She flung herself in my arms.

  Ouch, that hurt. But I savoured her warmth. I knew I would be vulnerable alone in Barresh, and it would be better if Eva came. It was too late now, but when I returned to deliver my first report to Nations of Earth, Eva would come back with me. Eva would be my wife.

  Her father went around with the bottle, topping up the glasses. “We drink to that.”

  6

  JUST BEFORE DINNER, I escaped into the hall with the excuse of checking on the guards. Of course, I wanted to make a few calls, and felt a cheat for doing so, but I simply had to know if anything of note had happened. I didn’t expect the emergency council to have concluded their meeting, but part of me was still seething about not being invited, even though I accepted that it was too late now to try to get in. I’d had my chance and, for whatever reason, when I faced him in his makeshift office, Danziger had chosen not to invite me.

  I found the two guards in the furthest corner of the kitchen, the subject of shifty-eyed glances from the cook. Two empty soup bowls stood on a nearby table. The men sat on their knees, a veritable showcase of electronics spread out on the floor between them. Screens flickered, lights blinked.

  With a sinking feeling, I recognised my comm unit in the middle of the electronic tangle. “Mashara, anything wrong?”

  Moss-green eyes met mine. “The unit, Delegate. It had a listening bug. Mashara has disabled it.”

  “It had . . .”

  I stared. A listening bug. Spyware. My first thought was that people were welcome to spy. I had nothing to hide. On the other hand, my midnight conversation with Delia hadn’t been so glamorous, and . . . Nicha’s father. Shit. I could already see the headlines: Asto plans military action to free suspect.

  “Has mashara confirmed where it came from and who has been listening?”

  One of the guards held the unit out to me. I recognised the ID on the screen. Delia? It was suddenly too hot in the kitchen.

  “Is it safe to use now?”

  “It is, Delegate.”

  “Thank you.”

  I picked the unit up between my left wrist and the tips of my right hand taped-together fingers, put it on the table, looped the earpiece over my ear and punched the ID with my free thumb.

  Delia answered within two rings.

  “What the fuck is this, Delia?”

  The cook gave me a wide-eyed look over his shoulder.

  “Cory? What are you talking about?”

  “Listening to me, spying on me. My staff have just identified a listening virus in my comm unit that came from you. I—”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t like being accused.”

  “Then get your surveillance off me. I’m being followed. My communications are being tapped. The police tell me that Nicha made a call to request assistance, but he hasn’t been allowed to call anyone, has he? What the fuck is going on? Do you want to solve who shot the president, or do you want to blame the first person who comes along in absence of a real suspect? Do you—”

  Click.

  She’d broken the connection.

  I tried again, but the number was dead. No answer.

  Eva and her parents would probably be waiting for me, but I quickly tried Amarru’s number. She was busy.

  Then, in a fit of despair, I entered the number of the person who had been trying to contact me when Eva told me to switch the unit off.

  It rang a few times before someone answered, “Nixie Chan.” The typical Coldi deep honeyed tones of her voice almost made me cry with relief. I switched to Coldi.

  “Nixie, my name is Cory Wilson, and I—”

  “Ah, I tried to contact you earlier.”

  “I know. I was busy. I’m sorry. I hear Amarru has asked you to look after Nicha’s case.”

  “She has. It’s beyond belief. No one has heard from him. I’ve been asking to see him all day.”

  “He can’t possibly have been involved in the attack on the president. I left him in the foyer—”

  “I know. You watch it. I’ll get him out. If I’m not getting anywhere tonight, Danziger is not going to know what hit him tomorrow. I don’t think anyone in this city knows how many businesses we Coldi own. If you have any warm clothing, keep it handy, because we’re going to turn off the city heating.”

  Even while the heating was still working, a chill tracked down my spine; within gamra, this would provide ammunition for those who said that Asto was taking over Earth by stealth. “Thank you for your support, but don’t you think that—”

  “We’ll get him out. Don’t worry. We have everything organised.”

  That was just what I feared. “Thank you.”

  “No, thanks to you. If this goes to court, we’ll get the opportunity to prove the illegality of the citizenship case. We’ll—”

  I heard the distinctive clang of the living room door.

  “Nixie, by the way, do you have any thoughts on the sort of weapon that may have been used?” I came very close to mentioning the red circle of light, but all sorts of shit would fly if Danziger found out I had breached my promise. Besides, like Nicha, she didn’t see the colour red; few gamra people did.

  “No, I don’t. It is rather strange, though. There is no vantage point to shoot from. I’m not convinced that something was shot, in fact. There are no traces of explosives.”

  She’d been doing her research. More often than not, I wondered how the Coldi got all those data so easily.

  “I still think it sounds like gamra technology. It’s definitely not local.”

  “Agreed, but—”

  The door to the kitchen opened, letting in Eva. “Cory where are you—oh!” Her eyes widened. Concern. Annoyance. Anger. I wasn’t sure what to make of her expression. Probably all three.

  I said, in a low voice, “Sorry, Nixie, I have to go.”

  “Trouble?”

  “Family dinner. Let me know if there are any important developments.”

&nbs
p; “I will.”

  “Thank you.”

  I disconnected and pulled the earpiece off. “I’m sorry, Eva, but things are happening that are too important.”

  She shrugged. “Dad always says that, too.”

  Anger, then. A seed of annoyance crept up in me. What did she expect? That I spliced myself in two pieces?

  I handed the unit back to the guards, and followed Eva out of the kitchen.

  In the hall, she turned so abruptly I almost crashed into her. Tears welled in her eyes. And then she was in my arms.

  “Eva, I’m really sorry. I really am, but—”

  “You’re so distracted tonight.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m tired. One doesn’t get shot at every day.” It was a lame attempt at levity.

  “Oh, you poor thing.” She closed her arms around me, and I lost myself in the rush of a rose-scented kiss.

  A maid cleared her throat as she walked past carrying a tray with dishes.

  Eva broke the kiss and she straightened the collar of my shirt. “You should really have put on a clean jacket.”

  “I know, but all my spare clothes are in Athens.” I’d taken a spare shirt, but hadn’t seen the need to drag along a spare jacket for a two-day visit.

  In the living room the maid was unloading her tray onto the table. Wine sparkled in glasses, and the smell of something Polish and hearty hung in the air.

  We sat down. I forced myself to relax for Eva’s sake. I ate and drank more than was good for me. I talked more than was good for me, too, Eva’s hand on my knee under the table.

  For once, talk was not about politics, but about churches, halls and dresses. I itched to go back to the hotel, but every time I thought to bring the subject up with Eva, she seemed to know what I was about to say and I relented. I was leaving after all, and in the last few months I had given Eva far too little of my time. If I wanted to be a good husband, I needed to put in a better effort, much better.

  It got late, and then it got very late.

  A maid came in with candles and Eva’s father stoked the fire.