Andrea Cort 03: War of the Marionettes

by Castro, Adam-Troy

  had volunteered to stay behind and wait for the next ride pavel iniya finished working on me then went off to ten to one of the other wounded I groped for Ocean’s hand talked to me he dabbed at his forehead what would you like to talk about anything I’m not sure I’m up to anything there was no mistaking it anymore something other than the ordeal we’d been through had crawled up their collective butt and set up housekeeping determined I threw out a wild shot all right how about you explain what you meant before about my tell the one you mentioned after our meeting with Chef Ocean stiffened I’m not sure that’s appropriate tria the man just died all the more reason he’s no longer around to tell me himself he released a weary sigh one that seemed as fed up with me as with the bloodshed we had survived you’d finally used his daughter’s name that’s all you’d done everything you could to keep the girl at a distance always calling her your daughter then at your weakest when you ran out of excuses you finally called her Meryn I spotted that he spotted that it was as transparent as any slip I’ve ever heard you make confirming that you’d begun to care it made me very proud of you I wasn’t sure that I liked being so easy to read I’ve always found safety in being the inscrutable antisocial bitch over the past few years people have been telling me I’ve changed and I know that’s supposed to be a good thing but I still hated this growing transparency for lack of a better word between myself and the rest of my species it was a weakness one I could never afford before and sure as hell could not afford now but I still hadn’t figured out what I’d done to get the Porrinyard so upset at me I made another guess I just wish there was something else I could have done down there to save lives but I didn’t know what to do except run Ocean looked away from me at the darkness of a night that had already been too long and still seemed to stretch several hours before us that’s not it I waited for more but that’s all he offered Valon had a reputation as a desert world mostly because that was worth the ballet and most of the important Native migrations took place and most of what we’d seen today had been dominated by vistas of brown dust but some regions were downright green among them the temperate rainforest that the rear Gaul had chosen for their embassy it’s a cool shadowed place on the shore of a crystal-clear lake just large enough for the morning to turn the hills on the opposite shore into mysteries nestled in fog the trees on the embassy side were done towers taller than any I’d seen on the many-worlds I’d visited their bark was speckled with random spots of orange and so thick with leaves among their highest branches that the forest floor existed in a kind of permanent shadow save for the places where the morning light broke through and dappled the ground with blinding Sun it was exactly the kind of thing people got poetic about if they got poetic about that kind of thing the reorg all had cleared enough room for the embassy buildings but the grounds remained wooded the structures not only nestled close to the trees but in some cases enclosing them the only unshaded area was right up against the water where the Embassy’s skimmers were moored at long docks like boats our pilot brought us in by landing in the water about 20 meters out and then motoring into place at low power it would have been all too easy to think of all this as sweet and rustic and charming especially after the walled compound croix used for his own embassy I could only wonder whether the rear goal would switch to something more defensible now that their mission to Vaughn had accrued a body count I was also not happy to see the five towering Villani who stood in the shallows placidly poking at the mud with their whips even as I hesitated wondering what to do if those monsters decided to charge the young indenture who’d broken her arm and was still cradling it as if the nanites hadn’t knit and healed it on the way here swore up and down that she wasn’t going to disembark until those things went away I don’t pretend to be incapable of hysteria myself but I have little patience for it in others so I got up and stepped out onto the dock where a rear Gaul embassy workers had already gathered to collect us most of the survivors followed their directions without question either happy to be told what to do or like the insistent woman in the skimmer eager to get as far away from those looming Villani as possible but I murmured and excuse me to Ocean turned right instead of left and approached Fox at the docks farthest point there was enough room there for me to stand beside her and study her expression she was the opposite of the woman in the skimmer she was not crying or shaking or showing much reaction at all she was just facing the lake her bloody arms folded over her bloody chest her bloody face as Placid as the crystal waters before us this was no messy emotional moment this was somebody wrapping whatever emotions she had inside an impenetrable shell I’ve never been an expert on offering empty condolences once upon a time when the wall around me was taller than it was now I would not have tried but the rituals that find human beings to one another pulled at me harder than they used to these days and I had to make the attempt I took a deep breath as I weighed whether I had enough data to honor shifts memory and fell back on the only eulogy that would not be an outright lie coming from me I’m sorry about your boss he did not seem to be a bad man Fox turned toward me her eyes were deep and impenetrable the only sign of lingering trauma a few beads of perspiration sparkling on the hairless ovals on her scalp after a moment’s eye contact she glanced back at the waiting Vlade and it was not so much the look of somebody fighting back fear as that of an accountant adding and subtracting the numbers in a profit loss statement I tried something else were the two of you close her silence could have meant anything it wasn’t just the wind or the recent nightmare that made me feel chilled am I missing something Fox’s voice was thin and frail like an instrument stored too long in a drawer most words are noise my chill grew deeper what I’ve had my mental acuity maximized by removing irrelevant functions like the need for empty social interactions I now speak only when I need to exchange information I’d heard far more emotion genuine or simulated from the AI source than I could even begin to detect and this woman isn’t that lonely I have the normal palette of emotions but my enhancements are under me and capable of factoring them into my actions enhancements this was not just a lifestyle this was something imposed by surgery probably AI source surgery it was hard to imagine any human surgeons ever knowing how to do such an arcane thing whose unholy idea was that did shift force it on you the word slipped from her like flower petals caught in a wind delicate and weightless and without any propelling power of their own no he took the change as a personal rebuke I was the one who decided I needed this improvement I could only spit out the question why my feelings were counterproductive her eyes were like pools of standing water too dark to reveal the debris that could be hidden beneath the surface was she mourning in there screaming in anguish shaking with the horrors she’d just seen so angry that she wished that this world had one throat she could throttle with her bare hands there was no way of telling post-surgery there was just her tranquil surface and undisturbed by ripples as the lake waters before us I could only imagine what pain she must to been in once upon a time to turn herself into what amounted to an appliance retaining her capacity to feel but removing her ability to do anything about it no that wasn’t quite accurate I could do more than imagine that I’d been where she was there had been days in my life when I would have asked AI source medical for Fox’s so-called enhancement had I only been deranged enough to think of it and because I hadn’t thought of it I just accomplished the same thing on my own by making myself a stony-faced unsympathetic bitch I wasn’t as bad as I used to be but I remembered what it was like and seeing what she’d become amounted to seeing what I could have become it was like seeing the next soldier in line go down to enemy fire she asked me will you help me find meirin I was spared the necessity of answering when one of the rear Gong came up behind us and asked excuse me which one of you human beings is counselor and RIA court thank you on counsellor court your presence has been requested in the ambassador’s office given the in expressiveness of the rear Gaul face it was useless to even attempt to examine his four cues about what might be going on between h
im and Tara Fox it was like standing between two marble slabs with painted on eyes but it was a useful interruption I told Fox I’ll get back to you a little later the messenger led me towards Shore where we collected Ocean before heading toward the Embassy’s main building I looked back only once before the path curved around the trees and shielded the lakefront from sight by then all the survivors had left the skimmer and the overlooked Fox was the only sentient still standing on the dock the fog bank that shrouded the opposite shore and wrapped much of the lake in vapor seemed to entrace her but I didn’t know whether she really saw it or whether she was lost in whatever and untouchable woman might allow herself to have as I watched one of the Villani had weighed it over to her position and now towered over her undulating to whips over its big black head in what might have been friendly hello or urgent question or heartfelt apology Fox made no move to flee from it or even to react I could only wonder if the flan II found her anymore an enigma than most human beings considered its kind and if somewhere inside the prison she’d made of her skull she hoped that those whips would slice downward and set her free her paths inner sanctum felt like an extension of the Villani woods its walls cut logs preserved behind a thin layer of polish to transparent fixative the corners lush with Villani greenery growing beneath the translucent ceiling one wall was a full-sized portrait of a lone rear gull standing atop a mountain on what I presumed to be their homeworld the only furnishings were an array of high backless three-legged stools with narrow vertical crescents where human beings would have put padded cushions for seats they might have been luxurious indeed for rear go but looked about as comfortable for human beings as perching on a rail Ocean and I elected to stand even though only one of those tools was being used by a rear Gaul unfamiliar to me that one sat in the room center surrounded by hollows that included one updating him about the cleanup at the amphitheater and others that presented an array of faces circling him with the fury of satellites threatening to fall from their orbits one of those faces was her Poth himself who I’d last seen walking by the wreckage of the bleachers others were recognizable as Burstein II or CID or Kison houghton by species though I didn’t know the individuals Croix was represented by his own name spelled out in floating block letters an odd manifestation of physical modesty before the alien ambassadors that mocked the compulsive nudity he was so willing to display before his fellow human beings the only other dignitary in the room with us was Qi Prime speaker cray reg glowering from one of the few spots not occupied by hollow his presence was a surprise since he had not been with us in the skimmer and immediately led me to wonder how much weight he’d thrown around to merit a place on one of the earlier evacuations I personally doubted it was because he’d been badly hurt the way he stood behind one of the rear gall stools clutching the end points of the crescent-shaped seat didn’t suggest weakness so much as a lecturer using the nearest solid object as lectern there she is he told the various holographic presences ask her why don’t you all in due time the perched rear girl responded judging rear gaunt pages is always a dicey proposition given that their facial features never change but I made him less seasoned than her puffs as he turned toward me circumstances made his fixed smile look predatory forgive any breaches of protocol counselor but I trust you understand today’s tragic context I’ll delay the necessary business if I have to if either you or your companion there feel that you need more medical attention before participating I could still feel my insides rearranging as the nanites worked on my ribs and I knew that I’d need some further attention eventually but the pain had subsided to a dull ache as for Ocean his wound had already been reduced to a barely visible scar we’d need rest but that was coming anyway no thank you excellent my name’s Korriban ver cough I’m her path second-in-command and we’ll be conducting this meeting though the Ambassador is monitoring us from the scene of the disaster and will interrupt an if he sees fit I know you’ve met my diplomatic colleague mr. Rago save time I’ll forgo introducing the others attending by hollow asking only that they provide their names if they have any questions of their own is this an interrogation good serve air cuff he didn’t have a chance to answer before raike broke in his voice trembling with suspicion and fury what’s the nature of your business on Vlad of course whenever the level of shit puddled at my feet starts rising above my ankles I always start looking around for the nearest chi classified I’m afraid that’s not good enough Veritas said it’ll have to be

  that’s what classified means and it also happens to be a very difficult distinction to justify on a planet outside Confederate territory where you have no official standing and where we have all just experienced a tragedy of unprecedented proportions if you don’t like the word classified then try the one privileged that works too I think you’ll find that interspecies covenant has always protected all private communications between attorneys and those whose interests they represent there was a moment of babble between the floating hollows only some of it in mercantile the wheezing CID tongue and the singsong bursty knee one predominated for a few seconds until their cough offered a more guarded are you representing the Corps or some private client I said I’m afraid that’s privileged as well more murmurs from the various ambassadors it was time to just come out and ask what is all this about anyway why would you concern yourself with my business when you have so much to worry about right now their cough addressed me with the apologetic urgency of a being who could not be held responsible for a fire but had to acknowledge its capacity to burn prime speaker reg has brought up your established history of being in places where peaceful communities erupt in sudden violence for no apparent reason Bo CAI reg specified there have also been a number of cases where you arrived at distant locations immediately prior to significant crises or prominent acts of bloodshed there was a certain incident on Xena for instance I felt very tired an assassination proven to have nothing to do with me and for which the culprit has already been tried convicted and executed true ver cthe conceded but you were on hand and it’s hardly unreasonable of the prime speaker to note that many tragedies of equal significance have accompanied your travels over the years can you truly blame him for wondering about any connection between your arrival at the Villani amphitheater just a short time earlier and this massive assault on the native ritual that has for the most part proceeded without incident from many thousands of years before you is it unreasonable for the rest of us to want to ask you some hard questions no it wasn’t that was the hell of it sitting in his chair or at least perched on his stool I would have been just as determined to explain the pattern under the circumstances I would have been less kind which was of course not the same thing as conceding I should have to take this shit traveling too volatile places in crisis is part of my job description it would be far more surprising under the circumstances if I’d worked my entire career without anything terrible ever happening on my watch they just tend to get noticed because of my notoriety notoriety rag pointed out venom dripping from every syllable that this creature earned by being a murderous and war criminal that hit me harder than it should have I had grown accustomed to the war criminal charge years ago but my defenses were down right now and regs words made something deep inside me grow very sharp and very cold very well the prime speakers too smart for me I confess a ver cothe said to what to all of it what happened last night I planned the whole thing in fact I’m so very nefarious that I arrived on a planet where I’d never set foot before spent a day traveling with a guide who was with me every single minute arrived at the amphitheater at a point when the Villani planning to disrupt the ballet were already on their way and only an hour or so from our position exorcised my evil influence got things going and fell off the fucking cliff all to hide my brilliance at pulling the strings of a species that had previously stymied all your prior attempts at substantive communication their cough held out his hands in an attempt at placation no counselor but I was too incensed to stop furthermore I am such an unparalleled secret mastermind at plotting catastrophes beyond y
our Ken that even before I arrived here I was able to persuade an army of those fucking giant bugs to betray thousands of years of their history and get into position for this pointless assault on the one thing we know they care about I am in fact the secret leader of their crusade and I was just out by the lake telling the ones munching weeds that it’s time for Phase two it’s a good thing you had Sherlock that she here to point out my evil plan without his genius at ratiocination my crimes might have gone undiscovered indefinitely there was another murmur from the