virtual attendees the only encouraging note in that symphony being the musical COFF that i recognized as the sound of Burstein each or tling jews alone knew how many of the others had a firm grasp on the meaning of sarcasm I’d had limited success at it even among other human beings birkhoff’s response sounded an awful lot like pity I find it interesting that you proceeded directly to defensiveness when only one of us expressed belief in your guilt it was time to backtrack to offer amends
to see that it was just the stress of the long night talking but I was on a roll now and could not pull back call it habit sir I’ve lived with this kind of idiot innuendo my whole life and I’ve learned to skip the intermediate steps it does make the rest of us wonder if you know more than you’re telling I know volumes more than I’m telling sir it’s my job to know more than I’m telling but what I’m not telling would not have helped us escape what happened last night you’re just going to have to heed the common sense that this creature I indicated the fuming rague lacks and believe my assurances that I did not expect this nightmare and would have given my life to stop it if I could there was no murmur this time their cough drummed his fingertips on his chest the lids over his big black eyes lowered to half-mast rague gave me the look of a sentient who would have had me killed and mounted in a chi museum if he could then the hollow presence I’d been watching the one represented by the floating word croix interjected what do you think we should do here a counselor regarding the Vlade the unseen Kreutz eyed with what seemed infinite exasperation but which I sensed from my brief encounter with him was also an infinite capacity for vindictiveness no counselor we’re still discussing what to do about the Villani this is about what we’re going to do with you
CHAPTER 6
Pathar
see a quick glance at Ocean
betrayed no great surprise on his own part he was weary flushed but more resigned than surprised it was my own fault for not paying closer attention to him these last few minutes the Porrinyards had a calm her head about such things and he’d been signaling me in a dozen different ways about the best way to handle what I only now recognize to have been a true kangaroo court when I turned back to ver cough who I’d to quickly settled upon as a possible ally if only by process of elimination in a room that also held prime speaker reg he could only offer a sad tilt of his head I believe your claims of innocence counselor the facts dictate no other conclusion and I am certain that many others here share that understanding but you are such a controversial and divisive figure as the prime speakers charges make clear that it’s difficult to imagine your presence being anything other than a source of further discord at this critical time if you cannot offer further information or failing that depart this world it’s clear to me at least that radical adjustments of some kind will have to be made that was it that was the sound I’d grown to know so early in life the one that had led to me spending so much of my childhood a deep core prisoner and so much of my adulthood a deep core vassal it was the sound of a closing door there cough
asked me do you have anything further to add before we deliberate either one of you Oshin was grim and stony faced as closed
to me in his own way as Tara Fox had been his failure to speak up right now felt to me like the bottom falling out of the world I tried to muster a compensatory anger of my own since that had always been my best weapon but found none only a cold dark place like a vault that had been stripped to the bare walls fair cough gave me enough time to establish that my silence was not just hesitation but a response in its own right then he gestured and to recall unknown to me walked in each one armed with a handheld teamer I’d been hit with one of those before when caught in a street demonstration that turned violent on New London they’re merciful weapons and that they draw no blood but it’s no fun to have your nervous system overloaded with some fractal image or to wake up with a splitting headache after you’ve spent a week or more as an incontinent drooling idiot unable to think of anything but the picture your keepers have imprinted upon your brain it was a serious breach of interspecies covenant for the real Gaul to bring functional teamers to a world where they had no legal authority but I was not about to say so I was too terrified of the damn things I’ve been terrified of them since very early in my career when I’d been junior member of the team that prosecuted a minor div Corps functionary who’d obtained one for his personal use and used regular flashes to keep a woman who’d rejected him in a state of compliant catatonia for a number of years the long term imprisonment and multiple counts of rape had been the very least of the horror especially since all available evidence showed that her captor had never allowed his victim any awareness of her plight but by then the image he’d picked something thing terrible he’d selected from a height X file of images from a world then suffering the fifth year of a bloody civil war had worn such a deep groove in her visual cortex that neither time nor therapy had been enough to erase it it was always there whenever she closed her eyes and the ability to see it to dwell upon it to appreciate that it would always be there in her every unguarded moment had been so terrible for her that she’d begged to be kept in a fully teemed state for the rest of her life anything she said was now preferable to the curse of being able to think teamers are nasty feel one once and you become meek when threatened with another you will be fed their cough said you will receive medical attention nothing will be denied you but until we do what conditions if any to place upon
your activities on Vaughn you will be confined to one of our guest rooms under guard this is outrageous I’ve still done nothing to deserve this treatment if it helps your cough told me most of us agree with you but our house is on fire and we cannot afford the distraction you represent while we work to put out the flames this isn’t your world you have no legal authority to do this necessities our legal authority there cough said I went what else could I do the last thing I saw before being led
from the room was prime speaker reg person his lips in the constipated expression that represents triumph among his kind his eyes seemed to crow you should have answered my questions when you had the chance I was too defeated to waste energy hating him back the room where they brought us was no jail cell it was a cool clean shaded chamber behind a door that was more translucent curtain than security barrier on the plus side we were not locked in on the negative that entrance faced another wall where the two rear gone assigned to guard us stood at attention teamers ready as they watched our emotions through the silk that covered the threshold the room also had a transparent wall that looked out upon the surrounding woods a ceiling that opened up onto forest canopy and shelves with some actual hardcopy books in rear Gong text it also had a pair of padded knee-high platforms that would serve as chairs the bed was a plush form-fitting mattress of rear goal manufacturer the kind that morphs to suit the shape of its occupant the bathroom which I checked out first thing looked less promising the sink and shower stall may have approximated the human variety with the added attraction of genuine water instead of the pulsed Sonic’s I bathed with on new London but the toilet was contoured to the rear Gong posterior and featured a narrow ridged seat so high off the floor that getting into position would require some creative gymnastics all of our belongings including changes of clothing and much of the contraband weaponry I always carry with me anywhere I’m not protected by my Confederate diplomatic immunity had been aboard Hammersmith skimmer and had no doubt been torn to pieces when that Vlade force reduced that vehicle to shrapnel I had a few useful items concealed on me but nothing that spelled overwhelming advantage we were left a bowl of fruit some rear gall some native to regions of lawn there was a clear bottle of a white powder labeled in several languages including the mercantile translation rations unflavored suitable for Homo sapiens this could be a long stay indeed if my hosts planned on feeding me nothing but human kibble I ran my hands underwater shook them dry and emerged to find Ocean sitting on the edge of one of the raised platforms his arms resting on his thighs and his hands hanging loose b
etween his knees I found his reluctance to look at me infuriating I didn’t see you rushing to defend me in there he looked lost should I have it might have been better than conspicuous silence I was otherwise occupied he made a little gesture at shoulder height shorthand for Skye and just as quickly another one establishing that I should not worry I started to ask him and he used a third gesture to warn me silent besides he said it would not have done any good whenever you get yourself in one of these political situations I’m perceived as an appliance something designed to stand by and enhance your presence while you perform your stagecraft most of the time the porn yards were the least defensive personal live seeing even the most blatant insult from two heads provided them with an uncanny degree of leveling perspective I’d gone total Raging Bitch at the more than once for no reason more noble than fury at their refusal to show irritation or hurt regardless of provocation coming from them this was almost hysteria I don’t look at you that way not most of the time he agreed never we could argue about it Andrea but it’s irrelevant anyway I’m not talking about the way you look at me I’m talking about the way they do when you’re at the center of a crisis I’m just a piece of equipment like that Fox woman was for Derek Schiff I could contribute an opinion but it would just be seen as you speaking by proxy and therefore in this case useless there was no reason to speak up it would not have made a difference the next words were out of my mouth before I could retrieve them it would have helped me feel less alone and that alas turned out to be the key because a cloud crossed off his chiseled features and he turned sad and wise and knowing in a way that made me see Skye’s face superimposed over his own you’re always alone Andrea and there it was proof that the Porrinyard s smart as they were could also say something they didn’t recognize as poison until after it left their mouths I saw Oceans sadness turned to horror and then regret saw him tense as he waited for my inevitable overreaction the timing could be better with this world falling to pieces alien governments dancing on the head of a pin and the human race headed toward a disaster I was not yet prepared to fathom our relationship needed to be more than a dangerous distraction but the heart operates on its own schedule setting its own priorities this was not something that could be postponed so I pulled the padded platform away from the wall sat down facing him and waited he rubbed the bridge of his nose it hit me when I was helping you climb down it had of course been Skye helping me but that was the nature of a shared being they had both been present I’m listening I once read a story about a blind man hanging from a mountain ledge by his fingernails he didn’t know that his feet hung only a couple of centimeters over solid ground and that he would be safe if he just let go and let himself drop for all he knew the fall below him was bottomless but he didn’t have the strength to pull himself up either so he just held on his muscles straining to the point of agony until his strength failed him and he fell thinking he was dead last night on the cliff was like that
except that there were several places where your situation was more precarious than I could afford to let on even before that stupid moment when you fell I almost lost you twice I’m happy I didn’t know it at the time he lowered his eyes I wish you had climbing with a partner is much easier when the two of you shared the same head and can complement each other’s perceptions it’s been so long since I did any serious climbing that I’d almost forgotten how tough it can be when one of you doesn’t judge help me I thought I was beginning to understand this and and for just a moment he looked as exhausted as I had ever seen him it made me wonder if you’d ever agree to joining once upon a time the young man and young woman who had become Ocean and Skye Porrinyard had been just another pair of lovers sharing only their bodies while their minds remained segregated in separate heads when they linked forming the new person they were now they’d shared everything from their most precious memories to the most shameful secrets giving up everything being with another person means in exchange for the shared benefits of becoming one the porn yards had long wanted me is more than just partner or lover they wanted me to join their composite personality forming a linked triad where there was now only a linked pair to form a new gestalt that would have some things in common with its component parts but would actually be a brand new person born at that moment there’s no question that I wanted it to I toured with saying yes I had no deep attachment to the broken acidic person I’d been when we met and who I still remained on some level two years later I envied what they were and wanted it for myself in part because we were formidable now and would be damned near unbeatable then but I’d also always said no at first because I was afraid and then because the joining would leave us all a single person in three bodies once again facing the eternal paradox of needing somebody else to love I also knew the cratered ravaged landscape I’d carried with me since childhood and did not feel I had the right to ask anybody else to share it the Porrinyards had promised to wait for me I taken advantage of their patience and allowed the wait itself to define our relationship but it must have been wearing on them for a while now and it looked like I was now running out of time I could only wonder how long this had
been simmering beneath the surface how many times they tried to let me know and I’d been too wrapped up in my agenda to notice I placed my hands on his shoulders rested my forehead against his and said you’re the only good thing I have to look forward to every day you’re everything to me will you let that be the answer for now
at least until this business is done he reached up with his right hand and palm to my left wrist I suppose it depends on what business you’re talking about flan is one thing we’ll be finished here sooner or later but there was a moment of silence as the thought of hidden listening devices prevented him from mentioning specifics everything else you have going on might consume lifetimes and I have to tell you Andrea I can’t wait that long you won’t have to I said I promise we sat in silence for a while and then I remembered Skye again I may have lost everything else but I still had my hiss screen I activated it now shielding us from any listening devices and asked where is she his expression changed becoming hers as he told me Skye as the day broke over the desert the floor of the amphitheatre was an abattoir ankle deep in blood and a reeking of shattered corpses this was nothing new it was the post ballet state of the amphitheater every year always before the weeks that followed would have been an exercise in clearing away the worst of the carnage with a small army of Lani almost as numerous as those who had been involved in the performance itself now carting away in disposing of the bodies while insects and fliers dined on the body parts and blood they never did a perfect job the glittering black sand of the
amphitheater floor was in large part lani chitin shattered to a fine powder by the millennia of performances that came before but most of the time when the ballet was done nothing down here remained alive but the local equivalent of flies and rats but this had not been a normal Villani ballet interrupted before the performance could truly begin it had not yet taken the lives of all its participants and thousands of towering survivors still milled about in a daze stepping over those who had died in the wrong way at the wrong time many showed scars from the terrible battle that had just happened here either in the form of open gashes on their big spherical heads or in whips that ended in shatter points a short distance from those heads instead of in pointed tips many meters further along their respective lengths but the greatest wound was visible in the tentativeness with which they stood around unable to think of what to do next the loss of any purpose in their lives or meaning in their deaths Skye Porrinyard who had passed on every offer of evacuation had appropriated a whip harness similar to the one Hammersmith had worn and followed the curve of the amphitheater rim until many kilometers later finding a gray gentle enough to permit easy descent she did not inform anybody that they intended her to do any of this because they were not in the mood for argument nor did she have to tell anybody because she was Ocean as well as she was Skye and their connection assured constant real-time contact if
she got into trouble she could always open his mouth and start yelling at about the same time I had my unsatisfactory conversation with Tara Fox Skye reached the killing grounds on the amphitheatre floor pausing with special reverence beside one dead Fulani whose head had been shattered and reduced to a broken shell filling its contents onto the black and
earth the Villani carry everything they have within those black orbs and the components bleeding into the dirt included things that must have been the stomach heart and internal sexual organs the Porrinyards had grown up in a world with a religious tradition but left that behind when they left behind the singlets they once were but Skye still murmured something under her breath acknowledging the enormity of the loss at her feet before moving on within a few minutes corpses were thick around her and she found herself having to climb over some of them in order to proceed gnats or the local equivalent of gnats swarmed around her cheeks and dive-bombed her eyes she waved them away frown in an echo of Oceans reaction to something I was saying a world away from this spot and splashed down into mud formed from equal parts sand and blood as she waded ankle deep through what had once been the life of living creatures she began to cry out hello can anybody hear me does anybody need any help the whip harness she wore did what it was designed to do turning her simple but urgent message into the few Villani phrases generations of researchers had been able to crack the artificial whips animated by nano servers in the belt around her midsection waved high above her head approximating the sinuous movements of lonny limbs as this was the first time the pour in yards had used the device they could not be sure that they picked up enough from watching Hammersmith operate his own to know for certain that Skye was using this one correctly for all she knew it had to be calibrated to her own voice and the only memes she communicated to the Giants all around her were total gibberish that was all right in that she was not here for them she was satisfied as long as the whip harness established that her mission
Andrea Cort 03: War of the Marionettes Page 8
