Matriarch

by Karen Traviss

  The aerial shots were interspersed with much faster, more chaotic images at low level across gray water and over pale canyon cities that looked like a fly-through simulation. It was only when the point-of-view appeared to do a loop to the right that she realized it was the output from an aircraft recce camera. The craft must have been retracing its flight path because it was passing over towering palls of black smoke and flame. Something white-hot flared to the left hand side—port, Ade would tell her, it’s bloody port—and the ahead view wobbled briefly. Had the craft taken a hit? It was still flying straight at stomach-churning speed.

  She was instantly in a cockpit, flying through flame that had burned five centuries before, about to smash her face against the controls. She’d relived this several times: she was seeing through Aras’s eyes as he crashed on an island called Ouzhari. She shook the memory aside and concentrated. There was more random footage: vehicles exploded in a firecracker sequence on the ground while tiny scuttling figures that had to be isenj scattered in all directions and didn’t get far.

  Shan could watch anything. Coppers often had to sit down and sift through footage that was a few miles beyond a nightmare. After the initial revulsion you could put your shock back in its box and suddenly all you saw was detail, the detail you needed to investigate a crime; movement, injury, spatter pattern, distinguishing features, background that would pin down time or place or vehicle or witness, and any of the scraps of knowledge that made up the jigsaw of nailing some bastard.

  Shan imagined that Eddie had grown used to doing the same. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe it was all linked to the trauma of having Ual shot dead standing right next to him, blood spatter and all. Ade’s memory was headlined by an incident like that: Dave Pharoah’s brains splashing his face at Ankara. If it could mark a veteran Royal Marine, it could mark anyone.

  Eddie’s swallowing was audible as he stared out over the caldera with his back to her. Shan pressed the key again and the carnage froze on the little screen, a ghastly vidgame. “So what did I just see?”

  “Esganikan and chums removing an isenj army and assorted civilian bystanders.” His glass was half empty now. “The Fringe and Tivskur have decided to gang up and launch a strike on Bezer’ej.”

  “They must be fucking suicidal. They know what the wess’har will do.”

  “Like the last time.”

  “They haven’t got anything like a credible spacegoing force. They can barely manage enough craft to bomb each other.”

  “Maybe genetic memory makes you think you’re better than you are.” Eddie held out his glass for a top-up. “What happens if I send that to Earth?”

  “Gut feel? Won’t make the four AM update.” Shan felt disoriented, part of her now having flashbacks of agony and being pulled from a burning cockpit, and part of her running screaming from white flame rolling at her like a ball. The fragment of isenj in her was reacting: that disturbed her more than developing claws or wings. “It’s just aliens killing aliens. About as relevant to the folks back home as a wildlife show.”

  Eddie turned and looked slightly bewildered. “Okay, carry on and look at the cut package. Imagine you’re sitting eating your cornflakes tomorrow and that pops up on the screen.”

  Shan pressed the key again. This was the edited piece; it opened with a shot of Esganikan’s ship blacking out the sky over Jejeno. Eddie’s voiceover began: “It’s a scene from a B-movie: a gigantic alien spaceship looms above a city…”

  There was nothing inaccurate in the report as far as she could tell. He made it clear that the Eqbas were effectively guests of the Jejeno cabinet. He had fabricated nothing: twisted nothing. Eddie never did. He’d even cut in some of the isenj archive footage of previously “adjusted” planets, the material that Ual had given him and that had so alarmed the Northern Assembly parliamentary meeting.

  But it still set her teeth on edge.

  “Want a frank answer?” she asked.

  “Why do people like you always ask that?”

  “All right, the Eqbas ship as a harbinger of doom has a high shock value but it’s…misleading. Bit too War of the Worlds.”

  “Tell me how.”

  “You might as well have said that it’s all the Eqbas’s fault. I think the B-movie line sets the tone.”

  “You think I should cut that bit.”

  “I don’t think anything. It’s not my job. I just told you how it made me feel.”

  “Is it scaremongering?”

  “Overall…well, if you’re asking if it gives the viewer a true flavor of the Eqbas M.O. then I’d have to say yes.”

  “So, given the level of sphincter pucker on Earth right now, what with the tension between the Australasian states and the FEU, would you transmit that piece?”

  Oh, so that was it. Eddie was losing his nerve again. He saw the direct connection between what he reported and what happened 150 trillion miles away, and he was scared he’d kick off a full-scale war this time, not just riots.

  She sympathized. The truth was noble and lovely, but it had consequences just as much as lies and stony silence. No, your husband didn’t suffer. He died instantly. No pain. Wouldn’t have known a thing about it. She’d lied kindly more than once when she was breaking bad news to families. As long as the truth didn’t need to come out for an investigation, no harm was done.

  “Come on, Eddie, get a grip.” She hadn’t seen him quite like this before, not just agonizing aloud but asking advice. “If you haven’t worked out your personal limits by now, quit. You either send every bloody scrap of information you’ve got, or you don’t. Once you omit bits, you shape it. You can’t fart around about where the line gets drawn. Evidence. It’s evidence.”

  Eddie, still staring out over F’nar into the gathering light-speckled dusk, managed to wag his index finger at nothing in particular with his glass in the same hand.

  “See, Shan, that’s the problem,” he said. “I’m paid to define that line. I’m paid to interpret without distorting. To make things clear for the viewer.”

  “No chance of that,” she said. “Is showing this to the public going to make any difference to what happens when the Eqbas show up? No. Will it make humans behave any better? I doubt it. Does it matter when you send it, then? No. Just sit on it like you’ve done before. Maybe the decision becomes clear, and maybe it doesn’t. But either way you’re not solely responsible for what’s going to happen down the line. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from wess’har, it’s that everyone in the chain of consequences has a chance to stop something happening.”

  “That’s rich coming from you, Shazza.”

  He had to be a bit drunk to call her that. “Okay, then, learn from my mistakes.”

  “I have real trouble working out whether the wess’har are wrong or we are. Ethically, I mean. Sometimes they make so much sense, and then I see them roll in like the Mongol hordes and I just don’t know what’s right and wrong any longer.”

  “You can’t mix the two philosophies,” said Shan. “It’s like trying to work in Imperial and metric. You can do one or the other and it’s fine, but try mixing them and everything goes wrong. Take guilt and responsibility. The wess’har logic on who’s guilty makes perfect sense to me when I’m in it. Then I step into the human moral framework and that makes sense too. But I can’t mix the two. It doesn’t work.”

  Eddie sipped. “Like the way they fight.”

  “What, that they just decide what they’re going to do without any sense of maneuvering the other side into conceding?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Culturally psychopathic in human terms.”

  “But ordered and predictable in their own.”

  “Human psychopaths make perfect sense until they mix with the majority of humans who work on escalating threat warnings and consider other people’s reactions.” A pool of yellow light spilled onto the terrace: someone had opened the rear door. “God knows I met enough of them as a copper.”

  “Is that why you’re so goo
d with aliens? That you’re used to dealing with nutters?”

  “No, it’s because I’m as fucking mad as they are.” She sipped the bathtub eau de vie; no, she couldn’t even guess what it was made from. She concentrated on the placebo effect. Change the subject. “It was nice of you to fetch the booze, Eddie. Thanks.”

  “See? Scientists do come in handy sometimes. If only for making moonshine.”

  “Yeah. Just don’t tell me what they made it from. I’ve seen the recycling facilities, remember.”

  Eddie didn’t seem soothed. In fact, he seemed more agitated. They’d lived in one another’s pockets for two years, and he was nowhere near as good at poker as he thought—not in front of a seasoned police officer who also had a wess’har olfactory advantage, anyway. He was working up to something bigger.

  “I need to ask you a really hard question now,” he said.

  “Harder than asking me if you should drop another bombshell on the people of Earth? Jesus, Eddie…”

  “What happened to Lin? I suppose I should ask about Rayat, too, but the twat deserved what he got.”

  Oh, shit. Why was he back on that? She hoped he’d forgotten, or at least moved on. It was a naïve hope. Like her, Eddie needed to close his cases. “Like Lin didn’t?”

  “She was a stupid cow, I know that. Tactical nukes are fine but cobalt is a no-no. Yeah, that sort of puts her in the twat league too.”

  “Are you asking how she died again? Come on—”

  “Yes, and I’m asking if she died.”

  Shit. That was straight out of the blue. “And why do you think she didn’t?”

  “Did Ade back out of handing her over?”

  “Still not with you.” Oh yes, I am.

  “He overreacted when I mentioned her. I just can’t see him handing her over. Aras, maybe.”

  Shan hoped her face was blank. “Leave it, Eddie. Don’t start.”

  “Don’t piss me about, Shan. Is she dead?”

  Shan didn’t have the guilt now about lying to him. But she wasn’t sure if he really did know the answer, and then if she lied she’d lose all credibility. She’d never lied to him before; she’d ducked the question as only a copper could, but an outright lie…no, she hadn’t. As Aras had told her in the early days, before they really knew one another, she wasn’t cut out for lies.

  “Ask yourself this,” Shan said carefully. “If you find out, will you want to deal with the answer?”

  “She’s alive, isn’t she? They didn’t do it, did they?”

  Shan simply stared back at him. She could do that; she was even better than him at the silent routine, waiting to see who would blink first. She’d stared down a lot of suspects during interrogations. Some got so mad about it that they took a swing at her, which was always a mistake that she dealt with robustly.

  “This is where it gets awkward,” said Eddie.

  Oh God, Eddie, just keep drinking and shut up, will you. “You tell me.”

  “She’s not in F’nar. Or Mar’an’cas. I’m pretty sure I’d hear about it if she was.”

  “This isn’t Twenty Questions.”

  “So where is she?”

  “What did I say, Eddie?”

  His face went oddly blank for a second, and she knew that look: it was sudden revelation, like he’d put a few pieces of the puzzle together with a satisfying snap. “She’s on Bezer’ej isn’t she? And if she’s not dead, and there’s the pathogen, then—oh, that’s what Hayin meant, isn’t it?”

  She put down her glass on the balustrade and stood square on to Eddie, a little too close for his comfort.

  And she was a couple of inches taller. That always had a salutary effect on men. She was back to being Superintendent Frankland for a moment, and never far from that persona at the best of times.

  “Eddie, you stop right now. Okay?” She kept her voice low. “You’re my friend, and I’ll never forget what you did for Aras when I wasn’t around, but if you go down this path then I’ll have to stop you. And I stop people hard.”

  Eddie didn’t flinch but she saw his pupils dilate and he smelled scared. She didn’t think he was afraid of her. He was afraid of what he now knew.

  “Oh shit,” he said. “Oh shit, it’s true, isn’t it? Her and Rayat?”

  “Are we clear on this, Eddie? No speculation, no stories, nothing. We’ve just had a chat about consequences, haven’t we? I don’t have to draw you a picture, not after last time.”

  “Hey, I know what I did. I regret even asking questions. If I hadn’t talked to Kris Hugel, the rumor about you would never have developed the way it did. And the bezeri would still be here, and Actaeon. That’s a lot of deaths for me to live with. So I’m not going to file any more c’naatat stories.”

  “But you can’t unknow things. They eat away at you. Better not to know in the first place.”

  “Well, right now, I don’t know anything.”

  “That’s a good place to be. Stay there.”

  “Just answer this, if I—”

  “No.” Shan kept her voice hushed. “No. Okay?”

  Eddie never gave up. She admired that more than he’d ever know. “If I did anything irresponsible, you’d do a lot more than smash my cam, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’d do what I had to.”

  “You’d put a round through me.”

  “For Chrissakes, Eddie…”

  “Shit, what else could I expect from someone who spaced themselves to stop Rayat getting the bloody thing?”

  “Look, let’s forget we had this conversation.” Shan picked up her glass again and reached for the bottle to top up his. “You know you need to.”

  “Jesus, you must be really pissed off about it after what you went through. How the hell did it happen?”

  Don’t remind me. Don’t rub it in. “How what happened?” She knew how to say what in a way that shut people up. She didn’t blink. “See, Eddie, if I told you anything then I’d have to trust you. And I recall asking you to trust me and walk away from a story about two years ago on Bezer’ej. When you thought I was a mule for a biotech company. Remember? When you put two and two together and came up with six?”

  “And don’t you think I regret it?” Eddie had a heart and a conscience, and it was now pretty easy to get a clear shot at both. “How do you think I felt when you killed yourself? After all I’d said?”

  “I don’t want your guilt. I just want you to understand what happens when someone tells you that it’s better not to know and it’s actually true.”

  “See,” he said. “You edit all the time.”

  Too right. If she told him, she’d have to watch him for the rest of his life, and even then she’d worry that he’d passed on the information. Neither of them said it, but they both knew the unsaid subject was c’naatat.

  Eddie didn’t look so hard-arsed now. Tired and drawn, he seemed to have aged more than a few years; high gravity, limited food and—there was no other way to put it—stress that few humans had ever experienced had all taken their toll.

  “Oh, balls to it,” he sighed, and tipped the eau de vie down his throat in one gulp, screwing his eyes shut for a second or two. “I just want to know she’s okay.”

  “Truth is, Eddie, I don’t know. I really don’t. Now let’s change the subject.”

  Ade’s personal radar never failed. He strode out the open door with a tray of lumps on skewers—evem, probably—and laid them on the barbecue, at once both friendly and making it clear that he was interrupting. He was a natural sergeant. He sorted things. He looked after her. Except for Aras, nobody else had ever been that protective towards her, and she liked it even if she didn’t need it.

  “Party pooper,” said Ade. “Come on, mate, stop talking shop. Make yourself useful and get everyone a beer.”

  Eddie just looked at him, and Ade stared back. Shan prepared to step in: but Eddie’s question—and he definitely had one—dried on his lips. “Okay, Ade,” he said, voice artificially calm. She could hear the effort.
/>   “Mart wants to play charades when everyone’s tanked up,” said Ade. “It’s always funnier when you’re pissed.”

  Eddie either took the hint or he really did want to forget what he thought he knew. Shan watched him disappear into the house.

  “Thanks.” She gave Ade a quick kiss on the cheek. “Very diplomatic.”

  “What’s his problem? You looked bloody furious with him.”

  “He’s worked out that Lin and Rayat aren’t dead, and he’s not stupid. Process of elimination and a bit of journo maths, as he calls it, and bang—he’s reached the right conclusion.”

  “Shit. Is he going to keep his mouth shut? Maybe I need to relieve him of his cam because if he’s had a bit too much of the old firewater, and he decides to file…”

  “Ade, I’ve picturized him. He knows what’ll happen if he lets that slip out on air.”

  “I’ll educate him if you like.”

  “No, leave it. But maybe I ought to crimp his ITX link.” For how long? You can’t erase his brain. You’re going to have to trust him. Shit, shit, shit. “Anyway, it’s my problem and I’ll deal with it.”

  Ade looked as if he was going to say something. He didn’t. But Shan heard it anyway; he thought it was all his fault.

  It was. But she was looking for reasons not to feel betrayed by him, because she loved him and he was a good, decent man. She’d never allowed herself to look beyond the crime to the criminal before. She was very conscious of how unwess’har that feeling was, and this bore no resemblance to the ferocious sense of self-sufficient completeness she’d felt after surviving raw, cold space for so long.

  I don’t need any bastard. Not Ade, not Aras, nobody.

  But it was a better life with people you loved than without them. If that was weakness, she’d have to accept it.

  Eddie reappeared with a tray of beer, flanked by the marines and Aras, who was carrying a large efte fiber drum. Shan met Eddie’s eyes, unblinking, and the silent warning was heeded.