The Kindly Ones

by Melissa Scott

  The holo-link had been set up in a pentagonal room on the first below-ground floor of the Tower. The technicians had shifted the treated screen-walls so that the working area of the room formed a triangle, cutting out the two screens that would not be used. Old-fashioned holo-cameras hung from the ceiling, pivoting smoothly on their well-oiled tracks as the technicians ran their last-minute checks. The Matriarch gave the mechanism a final, dubious glance, and moved to take her place at the long table that formed one of the three walls. She moved slowly, and Magan was careful to walk with her, offering unobtrusive support. The Matriarch settled herself awkwardly in her place at the center of the table, and motioned impatiently for the rest of us to take our places. All around us, the light was turning blue, as though Sunset were approaching: the technicians had started the broadcast sequence. I could feel a faint vibration through the floor, as the Tower's solid-fuel generators came on line, supplementing the windmills. My place was behind the Matriarch and to her left, the side of death and its mysteries on this dextracentric world. I took it, careful not to lean against the fabric wall behind me, and waited. The same group that had been at the council this clock-morning was present, arranged in careful precedence by age and place within the Family lines. Only Ixora, standing at the end of the table, was out of place—Ixora and Yslin Rhawn, I amended. The Holder was still in the Prosperities, unable to reach the Tower.

  His face scowled at us all impartially from the holofunnel set to the Heir's right.

  "Everything's ready, ama," one of the technicians said, and I saw the Matriarch take a deep breath.

  "Very well," she said. "You may begin."

  The light blued further, and the walls that converged in front of us, forming the point of the triangle, took on an odd luminescence. The technicians, hidden with their instruments behind the temporary fabric wall, murmured softly to themselves, and very slowly, images began to take shape in the walls in front of us. The left side, the Fyfe transmission, cleared first, and then the Brandr came into focus. Fen Erling, his face heavily bandaged, sat at the end of the Brandr's table, near the point of the wall, and I saw Anath Brandr beside the Brandr Medium. Not a Holder, then, I thought, and not an Elder, either, so why is he here? Then a chime sounded behind the fabric wall, and a technician said, "The link's complete, ama."

  "Thank you," Herself said. Her voice was without inflection, her harsh face composed as she stared at the images in the walls. "Fyfe and Brandr, welcome."

  Halfrid Brandr, the Brandr Patriarch, said, his voice equally without expression, "Fyfe and Halex, welcome."

  Almost before he had finished speaking, Araxie Fyfe said, "Halex and Brandr, welcome." Unlike the others, the Fyfe Matriarch's voice was hard and angry. She knotted her fingers together as though to imprison them, as though afraid of her own intentions. Trouble, I thought, and was not surprised when she cut through the Brandrs' low-voiced courtesies.

  "Sor, ama, we're here on serious business." She turned then, staring directly at the Halex Matriarch. "I'm here for my kin's rights."

  Herself took a deep breath, obviously controlling her own anger. "State your grievance, then," she said, and somehow managed to keep the words from sounding too offensive.

  "Simple enough," the Fyfe Matriarch snapped, and paused, to continue more calmly, "Your cousin-kin fought and wounded Fen Erling. That was our right, for the death of our Heir's-daughter—my granddaughter!—Tasma. That is our grievance, ama."

  "Ixora was the challenged, not the challenger," Herself said, with surprising forbearance.

  "So she says," Araxie Fyfe shot back, and there was a soft, indignant hiss from the Holder to my left. Herself threw out a hand to silence him.

  "Fen Erling is standing there. Ask him yourself, ama."

  Halfrid Branch said, "It is true, my cousin was the challenger, but he had been accused of lying and of murder by this person." He nodded toward Ixora. Herself stiffened slowly at the deliberate insult. "She need not have accepted."

  "Yes." The Fyfe Matriarch took that up eagerly. "Our quarrel took precedence, and she knew it."

  Herself took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "If Ixora had made that claim, ama, wouldn't Halfrid Brandr be standing before the Ship's Council right now claiming code breach and cowardice?"

  I held my breath. That was the best argument Herself had felt she could make, appealing obliquely to the Fyfe to ally themselves with the Halex against the Brandr. The two Families had common cause, both had suffered from the accident. . . . Araxie Fyfe's stiff anger did not ease, and I felt that brief hope die.

  "Fen Erling is hardly beyond your reach," Herself continued. "He can still answer for the death."

  The Fyfe Matriarch shook her head. "That doesn't erase the insult you offered us. You owe us the bloodprice."

  Herself shook her head sharply, and I saw Halfrid Brandr smile. Ixora said, "Ama, that's mine to pay."

  "No," Magan said, and the Halex Matriarch shook her head again.

  Ixora ignored them both, fixing her eyes on Araxie Fyfe. "Ama, I don't say I was in error, because I still don't see what else I could've done, but I'll accept the responsibility for hurting Fen Erling, and pay whatever I have to for it."

  It was a strangely dignified appeal, coming from one who was possibly the wildest of the Halex Family, and I saw Araxie's face soften for the first time. Then Halfrid gave a scornful laugh.

  "Do you also admit you lied, calling my kinsman a liar and a murderer?"

  I held my breath again, willing Ixora not to say anything stupid. I saw the muscles of her jaw tighten, saw her wince, before she answered, tonelessly, "I didn't speak to you, sor."

  "The two questions are inseparable," Halfrid said.

  "Sor." In the right-hand hologram, Anath Brandr leaned forward to catch his Patriarch's attention. Halfrid frowned at him, but did not rebuff him, and I made a mental note to find out exactly where Anath stood in his Kinship.

  "Regarding that—incident," Anath continued, "I remind you it took place immediately after the wreck, that no one was thinking clearly at the time. Also, as their own Medium will testify, Ixora was badly hurt."

  He was offering that line of retreat again—and against the wishes of the Brandr Patriarch, if I read the deepening scowl on Halfrid's face correctly. But he was also putting me on the spot. I looked down at the Halex Matriarch as if I could read the answer she wanted me to give in the elaborate coils of her braided hair.

  "Well, Medium?" Araxie Fyfe demanded.

  "It's true," I said slowly, "that Ixora was badly hurt when she said what she said."

  "But she hasn't—doesn't—retract it," one of the other Brandr—the Erling Holder, I thought—pointed out with a sort of malicious detachment.

  "That's not the issue," Herself said, before anyone could pursue the question further. "It seems to me that the point in question is whether or not you, ama, will accept the offer of bloodprice."

  She was looking at Araxie, but it was the Brandr who spoke. "Forgive me, ama, but it seems to me the question is whether that bloodprice fills two obligations or only one."

  "I acknowledge no obligation to you, Halfrid Brandr," Herself returned. She continued to stare at the Fyfe Matriarch. This was the last chance to avert a Fyfe/Halex feud, and I found myself holding my breath for a final time. If only Araxie would concede that Ixora's bloodprice, whatever it might be, didn't have to include admitting that she had been wrong about accusing Fen Erling, the Halex might escape one conflict. The silence stretched on until I was sure Herself would have to say something, anything, to relieve the tension. But she was silent, and finally Araxie said, "I don't see that the two questions are separate. Guilt in one implies guilt in the other."

  "Nobody said anything about guilt," Magan muttered, loudly enough to be heard.

  The Halex Matriarch said, "An error in one case doesn't mean an error in the other, ama."

  "Is that your final answer?" the Fyfe Matriarch shot back.

  "It is." Herself inclined
her head toward the other woman, a nicely measured gesture of regret and respect.

  "Then this becomes a matter for the Ship's Council," Halfrid Branch said, a little too loudly.

  Herself nodded, and the Fyfe Matriarch said, "So it does."

  "Rest assured I'll bring it up," Halfrid continued.

  "Sor," the Halex Matriarch said. From the sound of her voice, she had finally lost her patience, though I couldn't see all of her expression. "If you don't, I will. I'm tired of your petty harassment—and I'm inclined to believe Ixora, after all." She nodded again to the Fyfe Matriarch. "Ama, until the Council." Before the others could answer, she made a curt chopping gesture with one hand, and the technicians cut the link. The images in the wall froze, then slowly faded.

  "This means feud—two feuds," Magan said. He rose, offering a hand to his mother. She accepted his support, grimacing, and pulled herself painfully to her feet.

  "That's for the Council to decide," she said, though her tone made it clear that she had little hope of any other outcome. "Still, we'd better see to the arsenals."

  The Ship's Council could not be called in the single calendar-day that remained before Sunset, and it was against tradition to meet during the Dark. We had to wait for four long days before the genarchs could assemble: not only did the Council have to wait for Sunrise, but the Orillon Patriarch's single Holder decided to make the long journey in from Electra, now on the far side of the system from Orestes. Herself tried to use this delay to advantage, gathering allies, but so did Halfrid Brandr—and the Halex had always been the envy of the other Kinships. That was the real reason the Fyfe had chosen to pursue its feud with the Halex rather than with the Brandr, I decided at some point in those long days. The Halex, richest of the Kinships, had been able to stand the economic changes better than the others had—the mine closings, the new emphasis on woollens and luxury products—and they had even profited from it. I said as much to Magan one evening after Herself had withdrawn, but he disagreed. It was the code, he said, and shrugged. Nothing more, the gesture implied, and nothing less. The finality of his acceptance left me as chilled as I had been that night in Destiny, after I'd seen The Man Who Killed in His Sleep.

  Then, at last, it was the day of the Council. As an off-worlder, of course, I wasn't allowed to attend, but like every other human being on Orestes not in the spectators' gallery, I watched the proceedings on the comnet. Everything went as expected—accusation followed by denial and counter-accusation, Halex accusing Brandr of deliberately causing the accident and the deaths, Fyfe accusing Halex of usurping their rights, Brandr accusing Halex of lying. Testimony was given, evidence set before the genarchs and the Branch Holders—and all the while there was no attempt at mediation. The code called for black and white answers, guilty or not guilty, and left no room for the shades of grey that were closest to the truth. The ultimate decision had never been in doubt. By decree of the Ship's Council, the Halex were declared to be at feud with the Fyfe and the Brandr. The question of a Fyfe/Brandr feud was left for later.

  I sat for a long time in my room after the decision was announced, staring out the narrow window across the pointed roofs of the storage silos that formed the eastern wall of the Tower compound. By the clock, it was well past the dinner hour, Orestes sliding toward the Eclipse that would come at midnight, but I was too restless even to begin to think of sleep. I had come to Orestes during a rare interval of peace: there had been no major feud since the previous Halex/Brandr feud had been settled six local years ago, and even that had been considered more of a quarrel than a feud for a dozen years before that. I found I had no clear idea what the feud—the feuds—would mean. Would there be street fighting, raids on the outlying farmsteads, murder, riots? All those things had happened before during periods of feud—but not recently, not within living memory. After all, the code had provisions to protect neutrals—members of the uninvolved Kinships, the para'anin, and the dead—during times of feud. More likely, I told myself, there would be an increase in the sort of petty infighting one saw at the best of times, quarreling in the various minor councils, harassment over grazing rights and import permits, maybe the occasional fistfight between the younger bloods of both Families, but nothing more serious. Serious enough, though, I reminded myself. There would be more ghosts created, more work for me, and probably para'anin, too, as people chose to avoid the responsibilities of the feud. At least I hoped the ones who didn't want to fight would choose that honorable option.

  Outside, the light was fading again toward the eclipse. I sighed and stretched, then reached to close the thermal blinds, shutting out the rising shadows.

  The next clock-morning, and for the next several calendar days after that, however, the feuds might as well never have been declared. Business went on much as usual, the only difference being that the Matriarch quietly moved to phase out any connections the Family had with Brandr- or Fyfe-owned companies. That was expensive—together, the Fyfe and Brandr Mandates controlled the northern half of the main continent—and some of the Holders, especially Yslin Rhawn, protested the decision, but Herself was adamant. The Kinship had enough capital in reserve to accept the losses, she said, and she would not do less than her duty under the code. Neither the Brandr nor the Fyfe could really afford to lose those connections, either, she added, with one of her more wicked smiles, and the Axtell, doing their best to remain neutral, could hardly expect to take up the slack.

  Still, despite those changes and the occasional shouting match or fistfight in Destiny or Madelgar, the main city of the Brandr Mandate, life went on pretty much as usual for the first two grand-days after the declaration of the feuds. It wasn't until the Dark of the third grand-day that trouble broke out in the Destiny Necropolis. Apparently, the problems started when a gang of Brandr port workers sent to pick up goods that had been carried on a freighter landing in Destiny—common practice, since the Madelgar field was small, and most business was done through Destiny anyway—decided to stay over another calendar-day instead of flying back to Madelgar at once. Probably the hostility of the Halex working at the port provoked them to it, though nobody admitted it, but it hardly mattered. Toward clock-midnight, before Sunset had even faded, a fight broke out in front of one of the cabaret theaters inside the Necropolis. The Brandr, hugely outnumbered to begin with, were pretty badly mauled before the Destiny police could rescue them. Before Sunrise, one had died, and it looked as though at least one of the others would follow her.

  The Brandr retaliated, of course, with Fyfe help. The Halex, particularly the Ansson Branch, ran sheep and hoobeys on the Equatorial Plain north of the Ostlaer River. It's desolate country there, not really suited to anything but herding. I've never envied the people who eke out their living there, alone or in pairs, thick-walled dome shelters balanced on their ATVs as they follow the animals across the prescribed ranges. I think they control the wanderings with sonics and range-ware; mainly, though, they're there to protect the sheep from the flagtails. Or from raiders, in time of feud: the Halex Mandate borders the Fyfe Mandate along the Bight, the narrow waist of the figure-eight-shaped main continent, just a few kilometers south of the equator itself, in the heart of the plains.

  The first raid was bad enough. A couple of heavy flyers swooped down on a flock of sheep that had strayed too near the Bight and strafed it, killing maybe a third of the animals and scattering the rest across the plains. The young woman herder prudently did not fight back—one woman, armed with a single-pulse rifle, against two flyers?—but hid until the attackers left, then gathered the surviving animals and drove them back to the herders' base town at Anamet. I thought it was a fairly impressive achievement, but the opinion of the Kinship was against me. The herder was hauled before the Kinship council, examined on the subject of her cowardice, and declared dead. I had to preside at the ceremony, and found it extremely difficult. She, along with most of the other herders, took the whole thing stoically enough, and disappeared into Destiny as soon as the ceremony ended.


  Bad as that had been, though, the second raid was worse. This time, the raiders came during the Dark, when the herders had to be most active against the flagtail packs, and they made the mistake of picking the herd run by a young Ingvarr couple. With the first woman's fate fresh in their minds, the pair made a stand, and were killed. They didn't even have time to get off a signal for help to Anamet; the attack was discovered only when they failed to answer the check signal the next clock-morning. Anamet dispatched a rescue flight at once—outfitting those groups was part of what the Matriarch had meant by "checking the arsenals," I discovered—but they were, of course, too late. Both the Ingvarrs were dead, and the herd had been slaughtered.

  The attacks cast a deep gloom over the Tower for some calendar-days afterwards. Herself conferred with Holders and Elders, but since it was clear these attacks had no direct sanction from the other two genarchs, they agreed she could take no direct action herself. Responsibility for carrying on the feud fell naturally on the younger members of the Kinship. For several days, the Tower was filled with young men and women, mostly of Rohin's generation. They gathered in corners or in conference rooms that had been out of use for years, talking only to each other. Rohin was very much a part of it all, and I thought once or twice that he wanted to talk to me, ask my advice or simply share a confidence, but I avoided him. My oath as a Mediator—my commitment to my work—pushed me to tell him not to act, and that, under the circumstances, was very bad advice. Better to say nothing, I thought.