Eddie took in the meaning and fought to keep his reflex reaction under control. This was a fundamental taboo where he came from, one step away from ethnic cleansing. He had to remind himself that this wasn’t his world and he had no right to judge isenj or Eqbas morality. It still made him flinch.
Shan didn’t seem as hesitant. “But how do you decide who gets it?”
“I would prefer to exempt those individuals who would be most likely not to repeat the excesses of the past,” said Esganikan. “But I suspect there is no easily identifiable genetic marker for that.”
Eddie had to listen very carefully to the way Esganikan used language. She was precise. All wess’har—including Eqbas wess’har—said exactly what they meant, and they appeared to be shaping their use of English the same way. She should have said least likely. But least likely was not what she meant; she was seeking not likely. She intended to root out ecological profligacy by any means, including selective breeding.
Now he saw the gulf between the Wess’ej wess’har and their Eqbas origins. Eqbas intervention was dispassionate. They culled, like herdsmen, like fish farmers, like conservationists—like humans.
They’re just like us. Oh shit. They’re exactly like us.
It was the most fundamentally terrifying thought that Eddie had ever had.
Ralassi chattered with Rit. Eddie’s gut churned.
“Minister Rit says that the Northern Assembly may agree to limiting its population using your measures if you help prevent the territory being overrun by other nations.”
What was Rit playing at? Creating breathing space for her own state? It was odd to concede that quickly. Maybe she thought Eqbas were like wess’har and didn’t negotiate anyway; she might have been placating them to avert total annihilation. That was probably a smart move.
Esganikan tilted her head the other way and her copper-red plume shimmered in the overhead light. “As the Northern Assembly has invited us to find a solution for them, let us begin with the assumption that your region is willing and able to embrace new approaches to ecological balance.”
“So what is your strategy?”
“To identify which states and individuals will cooperate, and which will not. To aid those who do. To reduce the population in those states that obstruct the process. And to then enable the remaining population to manage and sustain the restored environment. This is a long project.”
“Will you maintain a presence here?”
“If the situation requires it and as long as we are able. We expect free access.”
As long as we are able. It was an oddy human disclaimer.
The bee cam hovered. Shan, arms folded across her chest, looked as if she was waiting for a suspect to confess after a long interrogation. Ade stared ahead of him with a completely impassive expression that had probably been honed by long periods standing to attention. Eddie wished he could smell moods and emotion like wess’har could.
Ralassi consulted Rit. “The Northern Assembly may face sanctions for allowing your intervention.”
“How will you respond?” asked Esganikan.
Chatter. “If there is a military response, with force. It would be an opportunity for them to acquire more territory and gain access to our water supply. We have the mountainous regions, and so the meltwater and rivers. If there are less direct sanctions—we will respond by limiting water supplies.”
Eddie had seen enough wars and their aftermath to work out how many deaths would result in an attack on a city so crowded that pedestrian traffic had its own rules of speed and flow. I know what a single cannon round from the Eqbas can do. And there were no plains or open country in which to fight battles. It would be city-to-city war: destructive and inevitably indiscriminate. Isenj knew that, and avoided it.
Esganikan must have known that too. She was a seasoned commander. “Let me speak to the other heads of state.”
“Minister Rit asks you to come to her office tomorrow and she will arrange contact with the other states.”
Esganikan stood up immediately to leave. Eddie pocketed the bee cam and made a move to intercept Rit, a straight hardwired journalist reflex that didn’t consult his brain.
But he found he wanted to talk to her, and not for a quote. This was his friend’s widow.
He missed Ual.
Ralassi watched him warily and the minister, a dark quilled ovoid just like her husband and every other isenj Eddie had ever seen, shimmered and tinkled like sapphire wind chimes.
“Do you have children?” Eddie asked.
“The minister says she has two sons.”
“Tell her I’m sorry they lost their father and I know they must miss him.”
Ralassi interpreted. “She says they have his genetic memories, and hers, and so he will always be with them.”
For some reason that hit Eddie very hard and he felt tears prick at his eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was because Ual’s sacrifice moved him, or whether it reminded him how alone he was. Rit tottered out the door, followed by Ralassi, and Eddie glanced at Shan.
“So what are you going to do with that footage?” Shan asked. Ade, standing right behind her, put his hand flat on her back between her shoulder blades as if he was steering her out of the door. “That’ll loosen a few sphincters back home.”
“I hope so,” said Eddie. “Does anything scare you? I suppose not.”
“We’re all scared of something, Eddie.”
Ade pushed her gently. “Come on, Boss.”
Umeh Station was hardly a diverting place to spend a day, but Ade clearly had ideas. As the two of them walked away, Ade slid his hand down Shan’s back and hooked his thumb into the back of her belt. They looked at one another for a brief moment as if they’d suddenly seen each other for the first time and were startled by the moment of revelation.
Aww. Cute. Whatever they saw in each other, it wasn’t what the outside world perceived.
Eddie realized he had only Serrimissani for company, waiting beside him like a patient but ill-tempered sheepdog. She’d looked after him during some unpleasant moments; a minder like that meant the difference between life and death when you were reporting in a war zone.
And he’d felt her needle teeth in his flesh, too. Ussissi were not cute.
“Weird shit, doll,” said Eddie, indicating Ade and Shan. “I know the wess’har are relaxed about all that polyandry stuff, but it still feels weird to me.”
“What solitary, possessive creatures you are,” said Serrimissani. “Your species’ permanent aggression has a root cause, it seems.”
Eddie wanted to explain to her that he didn’t actually want to be alone, and that humans were gregarious. But looking at the polyandrous and communal species around him, he realized he had far more in common with the isenj than with the people closest to him—his wess’har neighbors, and Shan’s bizarre family.
And his homeworld now had more in common with Umeh. Earth was next in line for Eqbas environmental adjustment.
Umeh Station: plant and maintenance level
Umeh Station was like every military base Ade had ever seen except for the lush greenery. It didn’t strike him as uncomfortable at all, but then a marine could make a warm bed on pack ice. It was just a matter of the right attitude.
It was almost luxurious here. They still had some dry rations, and Ade could be highly persuasive at procurement when he put his mind to it. It was amazing what people would trade to copy a few movies from his handheld once communication links were restricted.
Beneath the dome, a huge network of underground chambers housed recycling and hydroponics chambers. It was quiet and the passages were softly lit, the silence punctuated only by the faint hum of pumps and drives and the gurgling and clicking of pipes processing waste. He was waiting for Shan. She’d decided to visit the “crushers”—Actaeon’s regulating branch personnel—and find out how they maintained order in an overcrowded and sealed society. She needed to be kept busy. An idle Shan was trouble.
“Is t
hat you, Boss?” He could hear her coming; he knew her walk now. He could also smell her, a blend of cedarlike wood and human female musk. C’naatat had given him new layers of senses. “I realize this isn’t five-star. But it beats trying to find accommodation up top.”
He leaned against one of the soil pipes that shunted shit from the lavatories into the separation tanks and filters that turned it into nutrients for vegetables.
“Fine by me.” Shan inspected a machinery space with a door and threw her bedroll down on the floor. “Private enough.”
“They say people are put off by the thought of the shit moving around down here.”
“What, even the naval personnel? I mean, ships’ plumbing…”
“Civvies, I expect.”
“Squeamish buggers.” She seemed to have thawed a little. “I used to do obbo duty with a detective sergeant who peed in his coffee flask to avoid getting out of the car.”
“Did he finish the coffee first?”
“You could never tell with Baz. Or his coffee.”
“Yeah, I got stuck on surveillance a few times. Had to piss where I was, flat on the ground.”
“Don’t they bag you?”
“Do you really want to know?”
That was what he liked about Shan. It wasn’t just that he wanted her; he felt easy with her. She was blunt and uncomplicated, and he never had to guess what she was thinking. She had that same unflinching vulgarity as his mates.
So he could say what was on his mind. He was sure of it. Almost.
“I really am sorry about Rayat, Boss.”
“I know.”
“You feel you have to do something about it.”
“If you were me, wouldn’t you want to be sure that having two more c’naatat carriers on the loose isn’t going to make this situation any worse?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re pissed off because I’m going to second-guess you when I said I never would?”
“No.”
“Look, I know you had to make the call there and then. God knows I hate armchair critics and hindsight myself.” She unfastened her hair from the band that held it in a ponytail and raked it with her fingers before tying it back again. “I don’t want to be at war with you, Ade. You, me and Aras. That’s all there is. All there’s ever going to be for a bloody long, long time. We need to make this work.”
“Is that a pardon, then?”
“One thing I’ve learned from the wess’har is that there’s no point fretting about the past when you could be sorting out the future. Outcomes. Not motive.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ll go and find the bezeri and see what’s happening. If it isn’t working out the way you and Aras planned, I’ll do what I have to do to remove the hazard.”
“Are you going to tell Eddie?”
“That’s one complication I don’t need at the moment.”
Ade knew Shan would dispose of Rayat and Lindsay without a second thought. He began working out how he could make a fragmentation device that would work under water. It was the kind of thing that Izzy and Sue were good at; it might keep them occupied for a while.
“I’ll help you if you want,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“I know it’s a mess, and I know motives don’t matter, but I did it because I love you.”
Shan nodded. “You’re right. I did run out on Aras, whatever my reason.”
It was as if she hadn’t taken in what he’d said, or decided she would ignore it. He felt stupid. He’d inherited brief flashes of the most vivid of her memories—the awful ones with the gorilla and the riot shield and the boiling cold vacuum of space—and he knew that if he slept with her, he would eventually absorb others, and maybe even taste what she really thought of him.
What if she’s just sorry for me? Or that she thinks I’m useless and she’s just being kind?
He wondered if she had any sense of how extraordinary she was. All he’d picked up from her memory was that she thought she was smarter than everyone else and wished they’d stop pissing her off by being stupid. He wondered if he’d ever fallen into that category. There was no sign of it, but he’d looked.
“Sorry, Ade. I ought to be grateful.” Shan sounded genuinely regretful. “If it’s any comfort, I treated Aras like shit too. I’m just not good at receiving affection.”
“We’re all under a lot of stress, Boss. Even if you won’t admit it.” He caught her hand and held it, not sure if she actually understood how much he loved her. He couldn’t think of a word for what he felt other than love; but it was one-dimensional, inadequate, a word worn thin on ordinary women. He wanted a word you could present to a goddess. He needed a word that would make her understand that he now couldn’t bear to let her out of his sight and that the intensity of the emotion pressed so heavily on his chest that sometimes he couldn’t even swallow. “This bloody situation is almost too much to think about sometimes. That’s why I just concentrate on what’s in front of me.”
“Yeah. Interplanetary war, genocide, immortality and Earth’s next. When you put it like that, the pucker factor is off the scale.” Shan’s gaze was fixed on his hands, clasped around hers. Then she looked up and smiled at him. The world-weary copper had disappeared for a few moments: he was looking into a trusting, open face that had never seen pain or depravity, or looked upon her own acts of almost indescribable violence. “And the food’s bloody awful. That takes my mind off the rest sometimes.”
“Yes it’s amazing what you can put up with if the scran’s okay.” Her expression defaulted to her detective mode, that intense unblinking stare. He had to let go of her hand to fumble in his shirt pocket. “Look what I blagged off the supply officer. Fresh garlic.”
He rattled a little pouch of four heads of pink-skinned corms. Shan looked at it as if it was evidence and held out her hand. He placed it in her palm.
“We plant them the minute we get back,” she said.
“I thought I’d cook something with them.”
“When we can grow our own supply from these? I can’t ask the colonists for any of theirs, not now.”
“Okay. You never were one for instant gratification.” The phrase felt unfamiliar in his mouth and he wondered if he was now absorbing her speech patterns. “But I’ll keep one in reserve for cooking.”
“What did you trade for this?”
“Movie files.”
She put on her copper’s face again, instantly wary and questioning. “I didn’t know you had a stash of porn.”
“I don’t. It’s all comedy.”
“Sorry. I should have guessed.”
“I’m a good boy, Boss.”
Ade teetered on the cliff edge again. She’d said yes ages ago. She said she’d sleep with him. There was nobody else a man with c’naatat could have; the parasite spread like a dose of clap. But that step from the agreement in principle to making the first move seemed as daunting as ever.
Come on. She’s seen you throw up and crap yourself in a tight spot and she’s even seen you starkers, tattoos and all. You even shot her, for Chrissakes. And now you’re worried she’ll laugh at you?
“If it’s any comfort, Ade, I’m scared too.”
I can make my life normal. I can do all the things regular people do. It’ll rewrite my past. “Coppers are telepaths, aren’t they?”
“Trade secret. It’s a combination of knowing who you’re dealing with and watching the tells. You know. The body language. The little facial movements.”
She thrust her hands in her pockets. No, she wasn’t good at this. No better than he was, in fact.
Shit.
He reached into his belt pouch. Everything he owned now added up to his fighting knife, his mother’s wedding ring and his medals. An unromantic fuck in the miserable bowels of an offworld base surrounded by a sewage processing plant wasn’t exactly how he’d planned to seduce the love of his life, but there was never going to be anywhere more glamorous. And it beat doing it back hom
e with Aras in the next room. Maybe wess’har thought that kind of thing was normal, but Ade felt it would take a long time for him to see it that way.
He grabbed her hand, took the ring and slid it onto her finger. It was loose. She stared at it.
“Jesus, Ade, is that your mum’s ring?”
“Yeah.” Oh God. That was just so wrong. I wanted it to be meaningful. “Sorry. It’s the best I can do.”
“I’m touched.” She didn’t meet his eyes. “Really. I am. I don’t know what to say.”
“I know this is pretty grim.”
“So I’ll do it for a pair of boots, a bit of garlic and a ring, right?”
“Boss, I never—”
“Just a joke,” she said. “Honestly. Just a joke”
She laughed. She wasn’t the giggly sort and Ade knew that kind of laughter from a hundred near-misses when the firing stopped. This should have been a nice dinner in a smart restaurant and a comfortable bed: but the waste macerator started up behind him with an eloquent shudder of drives, and he almost burst out laughing too. His eyes stung with suppressed tears.
“In case you’re worried, I was sterilized ages ago.”
“I’m missing a few essential parts too.” Shan blinked a few times. “Get on with it, then. I’m not going to be any better looking tomorrow.”
Oh God. How would things have turned out if I’d done this when I first had the chance, before c’naatat was ever an issue?
“Romance isn’t dead,” said Ade. “But it’s not feeling very well at the moment.”
“It’s not doing too bad,” said Shan. “All things considered.”
F’nar, Wess’ej
Rats didn’t live long. Shan had warned Aras about that, but he still felt sorrow at Black’s decline.
He held the animal on his lap, cushioned on a pad of hemp fabric salvaged from Constantine. Black had never attempted to bite him but Aras took the precaution of wearing gloves to avoid passing on c’naatat if Black did decide to nip him. The rat’s flanks heaved; his ribs were visible under black fur now rusty with age, and his tiny nostrils were rimmed with red stains. He had respiratory failure.
Aras had seen generations of humans die in the Constantine colony. He had outlived them just as he had outlived every one of his wess’har kin, and he had even outlived comrades he’d infected with c’naatat before anyone realized exactly what it did. He was the only wess’har host who hadn’t been fragmented in battle or finally taken his own life out of desperate isolation.
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