“Oh no, no. Not that one. Of course, I do admire your taste. It is exquisite, isn’t it? But I happen to know it’s a family heirloom, and one of the few Lady Khalida owns. You see, she’s the youngest daughter, and not her mother’s favorite. If it hadn’t been for the intercession of her paternal grandmother, who, I might add, has no more affection for the girl than her mother has, but a better sense of propriety... that’s beside the point, isn’t it? I get sidetracked, you’ll have to forgive me. The point is, Lady Khalida has only three pieces of jewelry she really cares about, and that is one of them. You mustn’t take it. Put it back, and let me help you choose another.”
She lifts the necklace out of my hands and returns it to its velvet box. I’m too stunned to say anything, I just watch her replace the box in the safe and lift out three others, all the while continuing her chatter as I stand there going over everything I ate and drank downstairs. Maybe I’m really lying on the floor in the reception hall and they’re trying to revive me and I’m going to get a terrible lecture from the Dean about not drinking anything anyone gives me—I hope so, oh I hope so!
She stops talking and looks at me. “You’re not going to faint, are you?” she asks.
I don’t think you can faint in a dream, so I shake my head, even though I’m feeling dizzy and my knees are weak. I recognize her now. It’s Agatha, the Select I met at my father’s funeral. She’s still as strange as I thought she was then. When I think that, I really start to shake because if this is Agatha being weird then I’m not hallucinating and I’ve been caught stealing by a Select.
“Let me see. She’s a bit of a magpie, you know. But then, perhaps you understand that better than I?” Agatha chatters on and now I try to listen, to figure out where this is going, because I’m really shaking now and when I grab onto the table to keep from falling it feels very solid and wooden and real, not like a dream at all.
“Look, this one’s about the same value as your original choice. The design is less intricate, but the stones are larger and very nice... Ahh, no, she still sees this gentleman occasionally. We don’t want to embarrass her, do we? What’s in here?” She opens the second box.
“No, this won’t do at all. It’s not nearly as valuable as the others. I don’t want to cheat you. You believe that, don’t you?”
She looks at me earnestly. I nod. The whole episode has taken on a surreal quality. I risk a glance at the open bedroom door and clear my throat. “Perhaps...” It comes out a squeak. I clear my throat again and try for something more like a human voice. “Perhaps we should just forget this?”
“Here’s just the thing!” From the third box, Agatha takes a heavy gold bracelet, studded with diamonds.
“The stones are quite nice. I think you like diamonds, don’t you?” She pauses till I give an embarrassed nod. “It’s about the same value, and the work is so plain it’s almost a crime not to melt it down and see if someone else could do better.” She lifts one of my hands from its grip on the table and puts the bracelet into it. “Best of all, Lady Khalida no longer sees this suitor. Perhaps because she doesn’t like bracelet. She won’t even notice it missing for quite a while.”
She closes the empty box and puts it at the back of the safe with a pleased smile.
“That’s enough, isn’t it? You aren’t greedy, are you?”
I shake my head vigorously.
“Good, I thought not. You must watch out for that. You don’t want to end up like Lady Khalida. I shouldn’t say it, but I’ve never liked her very much.”
Suddenly I get it. She’s testing me. The O.U.B. are known for that. I should have caught on sooner. I drop the bracelet onto the table. “I don’t want it.”
Agatha looks at me sadly. “I can’t give you the necklace,” she says. “I really can’t.”
“I don’t want either of them. I don’t want them.” I wish I could be more eloquent, tell her I’ve learned my lesson, I didn’t know what I was doing, whatever she needs to hear from me. But I’m better with other people’s words, not making up my own. All I can do is repeat, “I don’t want it.”
“Of course you do. You’re not the kind of person who would take something for no reason.”
What can I say? Yes I am? I don’t know what to say so I just blurt out, “My mother’s dying.” And for no reason I can imagine, I start crying. I don’t want her to die and I don’t want to disgrace my uniform and most of all I don’t want to cry again in front of Agatha. This is the second time I’ve cried to keep something from her and I don’t want to be someone who uses tears to gain pity, so I make myself stop right now.
She leans her eye toward the small seal at the side of the door, and murmurs something into the tiny retinal-voice scanner. The door of the safe slides shut.
“It’s very complicated, isn’t it dear?” She says. “Now, wouldn’t you like to hide that bracelet and get back to the party before either of us is missed?”
Chapter Seven
Messer Sodum stands in the doorway. He doesn’t move aside to let me in, which is odd. Usually he can’t wait to pull me out of sight. Finally I squeeze in past him.
“What are you waiting for?” I ask. He closes the door slowly and turns to face me with none of his usual abruptness. He doesn’t activate the ceiling panels.
“Show me what yu have.” His voice is lifeless, as though he doesn’t care. I feel a prickle of fear at the back of my neck. Last time he was so eager to examine the glittering prize he snatched it from my hands. I stand still, looking at him, trying to guess the reason for his strange behavior.
He holds out his hand. “What’ve yu got?”
“What’s wrong?” I glance at the door.
“Nothing’s wrong.” His voice trembles, betraying him.
I should leave. Sodum sees me look toward the door and says, with a return of his customary sharpness, “Don’t question me, Missy. Show me what yu’ve brought. We don’t have all night.”
He’s right. Whatever’s bothering him is no concern of mine. I reach into my pocket and pull out the bracelet. He makes no move to take it.
“Who’s is it?”
“Lady Khalida’s.” Even as I answer I’m wondering, is? Not was? He always asks who owned a piece in order to sell it discreetly elsewhere, but this time the question sounds different.
“And how’d yu come by it?”
I stare at him.
“Out with it, girl. Did she give it t’yu?”
“No.” I step back, toward the door.
Sodum looks exasperated. “Did yu find it lying on a table, p’rhaps? See it in passing and take it on impulse? Regretting it already, aren’t yu?”
There are beads of sweat on his brow. Messer Sodum never sweats. For a man who’s always nervous, this is remarkable. I think of him as a lizard: quick metabolism, cool skin. But now he’s sweating. I take another step toward the door.
The lights go on. Blinking in the sudden brightness, I don’t at first understand what’s happening. Then the blue and white robe registers.
I drop the bracelet. It hits the clay tile floor with a harsh, accusatory report, clattering angrily for a moment as it settles. I’m reminded of Owegbé in one of her rages.
Then the silence is absolute.
Is it too late to run?
“Kia Ugiagbe,” the Select says calmly, destroying any thought of escape. He bends down and lifts the bracelet from the floor. “I believe you were bringing this stolen jewelry to Messer Sodum?”
“I want none o’ this!” Sodum cries shrilly. “I’ve done my bit. Yu said it would clear the past an’ I’d be done.”
The Select doesn’t even glance at Sodum. “You may go now, Kia Ugiagbe,” he says. “You will come to Number One Prophet’s Avenue in two days at ten hundred hours. Please be punctual. An Adept’s time is precious.”
I turn and open the door, too numb to do anything but obey. Behind me, I hear the Select addressing Sodum. “You will no longer accept stolen property. We will know if you do.”<
br />
“No, no! Never again! I was sorely tempted but I see the error now—”
I close the door on his pathetic protests and stand there, frozen in the dark street. I’ve been ordered to appear before an Adept—I alternate between disbelief and utter terror. Why didn’t they just turn me over to the pols? What will the Adept say, what will he do to me?
I start to run. When I reach the transit strip I leap on without waiting for it to slow, and race down the middle of it despite the rush of wind caused by the strip’s speed. You’re not allowed to walk, let alone run, in the accelerated center of the transit strips, but I tear down it, risking my life and anybody else’s who might be on it. I have to get away, that’s all I can think: Get away!
The strip turns into a curve. The force of the wind, suddenly hitting me sideways, knocks me into a pole. I grab it going down and hold on, banging my legs against the seat I should have been in as I fall. My hands, slick with sweat, slip on the pole, and for a second I think I’m going to be thrown off. Clinging desperately to the pole, I manage to brace my battered leg against the bottom of the seat where it meets the strip, until the transit straightens out and the wind dies down. I crawl up the pole and fall into the seat.
I sit there gasping for breath. My hands are sore and my right shoulder is on fire, I can barely move that arm. My left ankle screams with pain, I must have twisted it going down, and my right knee throbs; both legs feel sore and bruised. But nothing feels broken.
The near-catastrophe clears my head. What was I thinking? That I could run away from an O.U.B. summons? Where did I think I could hide from them? They’re on every settled planet, with an information network that rivals any government’s. Not that there’s any rivalry; they work harmoniously with every world’s pol force. I’ll stand in front of an Adept one way or another; trying to run will only make it worse. I get up and hobble to the edge of the strip, holding the poles with my left hand and trying to put as little weight as possible on my left ankle as I reach for the pull that will slow the strip. I grit my teeth to keep from crying out as I swing off the strip and hobble across to the one going the opposite way, back to my dorm at the college.
I spend the first day at the college library listening to every flash I can find on the O.U.B. Most of them are about religion. I skim the explanation that the O.U.B. was created in the 23rd century as an amalgamation of the six major Earth religions at the time, that their goal was to bring order, faith, and peace to the planets being colonized by a mishmash of cultures from over-populated Earth. Yada, yada, yada, basic history. I fast forward in nervous jerks, searching for something on punishments. When I exhaust the college library, I go to the Trader’s library, but there’s even less on the O.U.B. there, and next to nothing about their judiciary role. There’s only one flash on which Adept hearings are even mentioned. They’re referred to as a “rumor”; yet they’re on an authorized learning flash, which means that they can neither be doubted nor proved. I run it again.
“Rumor has it,” the disinterested voice on the flash states, “that the O.U.B. might, on occasion, approach a person and ask him or her to appear before an Adept. The Adept will hear the evidence, examine the accused, and possibly offer a “path of atonement” as an alternative to civil justice. These judgments, if they occur, do not appear on any public record.” That’s it. I play it until I’ve memorized it. It’s no use at all.
I widen my search and find a few people who mention in their memoirs being approached by the Order. They all played some role in the history of a world by accepting an Adept’s request. Perhaps they’d been caught in some wrong-doing, perhaps not: they don’t mention that. And there’s no one like me—an ordinary person, a nobody. But then, ordinary people don’t write memoirs.
A few convicted criminals claim to have been approached by the O.U.B. before their court appearance, but they have only the haziest memory of their interrogations and don’t mention refusing any ‘atonement’. If it’s true, what must they have been asked to do, for them to choose public disgrace and prison instead? They knew they’d be found guilty. When the Select hand someone over to the pols there’s no doubt of his culpability; the proof is delivered along with the culprit.
Or maybe they didn’t get a choice. Maybe the Adept examined them and they failed whatever test was put to them?
What an idiot I was to take that bracelet from Select Agatha. Of course a Select wouldn’t help me steal—and let me get away with it. But I’d been so sure of her sincerity. Dumb, dumb, dumb! What made me imagine I could read a Select? I shouldn’t be tried for theft, I should be tried for stupidity!
I give up my search and go to bed, but I can’t sleep. Oghogho snores across the room while I consider my options. Could I make use of Agatha’s complicity, even if it was fabricated to trap me? They wouldn’t want one of their own exposed as an accomplice to theft. Imagine the newsreels: Select jailed for theft. But the thought of Agatha in jail doesn’t give me any comfort, it makes me feel worse. Owegbé raised me to revere the O.U.B.; my father to distrust them. Neither would give me a good reason why, so I settled on indifference. Indifference is a little hard to maintain in my current circumstances. Owegbé would be pleased by that, at least.
Owegbé! She’s going to die of shame when she hears about this. I sit up suddenly in my bed. I will cause both their deaths. And Etin, he’s going to despise me.
This is too painful to think about, so I lie down again and revert back to Agatha. It doesn’t make sense that she’d make me trade the necklace for the bracelet if she knew they were going to catch me at Messer Sodum’s and get it back. For that matter, why didn’t she just tell me to report to the Adept when she saw me standing before the open safe with the necklace in my hands?
Nothing makes sense.
I get up early the next morning and take a long, hot bath followed by a shower. There may not be such luxuries in prison. I spend some time debating whether to take my father’s leather pouch with me or not, but in the end I hide it under my mattress, along with the tools Sodum sold me. Then the whole way there on the slowstrip I berate myself for choosing such an obvious hiding place. At least it takes my mind off what I’m heading toward.
There’s a Prophet’s Avenue in the capital city on every world, and Number One always houses the O.U.B.’s planetary administrative offices. The rest of Prophet’s Avenue is lined with residences for the Select stationed on the planet. Even those working in distant cities have a unit here. The Adepts live in residential wings in Number One.
As I limp down Prophet’s Avenue, still favoring my left ankle, I have the sensation of being watched. I imagine a Select at every window staring at me, knowing why I’m here. When I find Number One I go straight up to the door, even though I’m early. I won’t give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me hesitate, as though I’m afraid. Which I am, terribly, but that’s my business.
The porter leads me to a waiting room and asks whether I’d like something to eat or drink. She’s middle-aged, dressed in a blue and white jumpsuit, with her hair knotted tightly at the back. Her voice is pleasant but she doesn’t smile; in fact she shows as little expression as a Select. Agatha excepted.
I take a drink, as though I’m here on a social visit. My stomach’s in such knots I have to work at not gagging when I sip it, but I don’t let her see that. When she leaves I look around. That plant in the corner wouldn’t mind absorbing some liquid. I sit down beside it casually.
At precisely ten hundred hours the porter reappears and escorts me to an inner room. There’s a high desk on a raised platform at the far end, and two smaller tables in the middle of the room facing it, each one with a Select sitting at it, their backs to me. The table on the right has a second, empty chair beside the Select. It all looks very plain and unimposing—until the Adept walks in.
She is wearing the blue and white robes of the Order, but all I notice are her eyes. She glances round the room and settles on me with an intense, unwavering attention that makes me f
eel like a bird caught in the stare of a snake. I freeze in the doorway. I can’t move, can’t even think straight, although there’s nothing overtly sinister about her. She doesn’t look angry or cruel or judgmental. She’s just so focused that everything and everyone else dims by comparison.
“Kia Ugiagbe,” she says. Her voice is calm, but it resonates in the room, which seems too small to contain her. I take a nervous step forward. Should I bow? Approach her? I dip my head quickly.
“Face your accuser.” The Select on the left rises. He bows to her and turns to face me. It’s the Select I saw at Messer Sodum’s two days ago.
“And the companion who will advise you.” The second Select stands, bows, and turns around.
It’s Select Agatha.
Chapter Eight
“I know this person, Adept.” Agatha has turned back toward the Adept so I can’t see her expression, but her voice is calm, emotionless.
“Tell us.”
I force myself to breathe evenly, and wait for the damning evidence to come out.
“I met her at her father’s funeral.”
“Is that all?”
“No. She is training to be an interpreter. I met her again at an embassy reception.”
“Did you speak together?”
“Yes.”
The Adept and I both wait (me more anxiously than her) but Agatha volunteers nothing further. I avoid the Adept’s eyes when she looks at me, trying to keep my face as blank as possible.
“Do you want another advisor?” she asks me.
Yes! I want Agatha—and the testimony she can give, assuming she hasn’t already—as far away as possible. But if I say yes, the Adept will know there’s more to the story than Agatha admitted. She’ll read it in my face. No, I correct myself, she already has. And Agatha won’t lie if the Adept asks her outright, which she’s probably planning to do.
Why didn’t Agatha tell her the whole story? Is it part of the role of advisor, Agatha has to do her best to help me? If that’s it, and I say I don’t want her as my advisor, I might be releasing her to testify against me. I have a headache already, and the interrogation hasn’t even started yet.
Walls of Wind and the Occasional Diamond Thief Boxed Set Page 38
