by Patty Jansen
“Why are there people on this list who are not on the face recognition result?” Nicha was looking over my shoulder.
“Because face recognition is not perfect,” Thayu said.
Telaris said, “Because they use alternate names?”
As he said that, a chill crept over my back. There would only be one reason for people to do that: if they didn’t want to be recognised. “Maybe they’re military people?”
And, also, those people were the ones whose names were marked with colour-coded labels. Did they indicate how much these people had paid to be here and be part of “A new wave of development in Africa” that Mr Kray was pushing?
I glanced at the wallscreen. In the hall, the guests were now eating breakfast.
People were engaging in lively conversation and the scene looked just like those “working” breakfasts I’d sometimes attended at Nations of Earth.
With one press of a button, I was going to disturb their illusion of progress and self-determination.
“Everyone ready?”
Thayu, Nicha, Evi and Telaris all nodded.
I pressed send.
Downstairs, in the hall, a lot of people groped for their readers at the same time. Read my message. It grew very quiet. People were looking at each other from the corners of their eyes, clearly not sure what to do.
Then a man rose. He was a bearded fellow, wearing a flowing blue robe characteristic of some of the Arab desert tribes. He shouted angry words, but his accent was too strong and the quality of the recording wasn’t good enough to make out what he said.
Several other people rose. An argument broke out between a couple of guests. One man pushed another in the chest, causing him to fall on top of the table behind him. The woman who sat there yelled at the aggressor.
A couple of armed krayfish guards ran between the tables, but they completely ignored the skirmishes and went to Mr Kray, who sat at a table in the middle of the hall. He rose. The guards surrounded him with their backs to him, and started moving out of the hall.
The poor person in charge of recording the event had no idea where to point the camera. It swung around wildly, showing a number of people leaving the hall past the side of the pool, or swinging back to the argument in the middle of the hall, or Mr Kray now making his way between the tables surrounded by guards. People around him yelled at him. One of the guests had climbed onto a table in order to speak to him.
Sounds were all garbled. Orders being shouted, people asking questions, yelling at others. Over the top of the noise came a very loud bang.
The camera swung back to Mr Kray. The man on the table froze and jerked, and fell backwards between the tables. A red spot bloomed on his chest.
People nearby screamed, running from the scene.
The camera feed went black.
“Well, shit,” Nicha said. “I guess our camera man has been ordered to stop recording.”
Although the screen had gone quiet, we could still hear sounds of yelling through the floor and several walls.
“Maybe it’s time to go,” Thayu said.
“We’ve done nothing yet!” Evi protested. He’d been watching the screen intently, his hands clasped tightly while leaning his elbows on his knees.
“We’ve got enough incriminating information for authorities to draw the necessary conclusions.”
“Authorities! Pardon the abandoning of protocol, Delegate, but do you know what men like this do with authorities?”
“My guess: they buy them and corrupt them. That’s why we’re here. We have proof of corruption that goes all the way to the top. We take it to Amarru and Nations of Earth. They will have reason to act.”
“By that time, this evil man will have disappeared. He will go somewhere else and start again. But all these people, the innocent, the opportunistic and the hopeful, will have lost their livelihood and often family members. Not to mention their front teeth. They had hope that life would be better. That someone could do something useful with this hot desert that—let’s see—was here not because of something they did, right? Because this land was written off because the world grew warmer, and that had nothing to do with the poor countries in this region.”
His reaction took me aback, but he was one hundred percent right, and it was precisely the reason why a lot of the wars had happened.
I got up and faced him. He was a head taller than me and very imposing. Behind him, his brother was making cautious noises in Indrahui.
“What would you do in this situation? I can warn Nations of Earth. I can warn Amarru. They can send people. I can’t possibly allow Asha Domiri to interfere.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’ll be committing an act of war.”
“Don’t Nations of Earth want this solved?”
“Yes but . . .” I lifted my hands.
“Haven’t we just warned everyone to get out of here? All the guests are leaving. All the factory workers should be leaving as well. The only ones left would be this vile man and his vile assistants. He’s not even a citizen of any country or gamra entity and his henchmen are soldiers who know that the risk of signing up to fight for a warlord is that you may die.”
But . . . I let my hands sink again. Yes. I could tell Asha to destroy these buildings and the fields. But. “No. Much as it would make sense—”
“It would solve the problem—”
“—Much as it would make sense, I can’t allow that. We’re going back to Athens and Rotterdam. We’re going to present our information. Lucius Brown will find himself out of a job. Heck, even Danziger might be forced out of the race—”
“The president is an idiot, but he’s not guilty. He can resign for all he wants, and Lucius Brown can be punished as much as Nations of Earth wants, but there will be no point unless we stop this vile man.”
Ouch. Right again.
Evi’s moss green eyes met mine, intense. Why had I ever thought that he was timid? Right now, he frightened the hell out of me. I didn’t even want to think about what would happen if Nations of Earth assembly got wind of a strike from orbit by the Asto army.
“Can we have this discussion later?” Thayu said. “If we wait any longer they’ll have traced the message back to this room.”
“We are going back to Athens,” I told Evi, still meeting his eyes. “That’s final.”
He nodded curtly and went to gather his things. He was unhappy. Oh, he was very unhappy. Nicha gave me a look I couldn’t interpret.
I said, Well then, what would you do? I was getting really annoyed.
He said nothing. The feeder told me that he was thinking of Kazakhstan, of the mess and protracted fights, of all the innocent civilian lives lost. And no one there was even forced into pahemin indenture structures. A generation or two of this, and no one would even be loyal to PanAf anymore.
I get it, Nich’. Stop it.
I couldn’t possibly authorise Asha to strike.
Could. Not.
End. Of. Discussion.
CHAPTER 26
* * *
WE WENT INTO the corridor. Already a good number of people were running out of the stairwell to their rooms. We struggled down the stairs against the stream and came to the foyer. A couple in African garb protested loudly at the front desk. They wanted the first flight out of here, they said. The girl at the desk seemed flustered and nervous. I heard her mention Mr Kray’s name several times. A large group of people were watching, many of them holding their suitcases. They all wanted to leave immediately, too. More were joining all the time.
I had expected . . . whatever reaction someone would show when an illegal scheme had been discovered. Anger, nervousness. Perhaps people avoiding each other.
>
I was not prepared to see this level of apparently genuine outrage. Surely they had to be aware that Mr Kray’s plans were very dark grey at best. Had not one of these people asked which crop stayed brilliantly green in the hottest desert on Earth, and where it came from?
The foyer of the accommodation wing gave direct access the pool and dining area. A lot of the guests were still coming in. The door was quite narrow so a group of people bunched up outside. Some people had stains over their clothes. Some argued, others were yelling hysterically.
We waited on the inside of the door. I wasn’t even sure why Thayu wanted to go that way. The krayfish would be in that part of the building. I had no intention of getting caught by them.
The vehicles are that way, Thayu said in response to my thoughts. Unless we have more business here, we should get out as soon as we can.
Seriously, Thay’, just stop acting as if your father is going to attack from orbit.
I was trying very hard not to blame them for failing to understand my objections. I was certain: Amarru had sent me here to stop a direct attack from orbit. Because she understood how much Nations of Earth was attached to sovereignty and how much that would upset them. Even if the target was not under Nations of Earth jurisdiction, the land was.
Thayu squeezed out the door into the hall when there was a little gap between the people who were coming in. We followed close behind her.
In the dining area, a couple of cleaners were already sweeping up the mess of fallen plates and broken glass. There was no sign of any bodies.
A couple of guards stood mulling about at another exit.
I whispered, “Thay’!” I held her back.
She pulled me down behind a planter box. Evi balanced the large gun on the concrete rim and pointed it at the guards between two slender palm trunks. Telaris aimed his smaller gun.
A woman squealed. The guards turned in our direction. Thayu motioned with her hand. Evi and Telaris both fired. A flash of light zapped across the pool and exploded at the entrance to the hall. People behind us screamed. When the dust cleared, the guards were on the ground and a hole had appeared in the wall.
Evi hung the giant gun on a bracket on his belt.
The expression on his face still chilled me. It was not unemotional, it was murderous. He was not here to protect me. He was here to serve justice for the killing of his sister in the bloodiest way possible. If I wasn’t going to order that strike from orbit, he would stay here to kill Mr Kray, or be killed instead.
We ran past the pool to the entrance. Thayu stopped briefly to check the fallen guards for weapons, but they had been too badly burned to be of any use.
“We need to be more careful. Someone else is sure to have noticed that massive blast.” She glared at Evi, who stared ahead.
Thayu met my eyes. I’m worried. Is it safe to continue with him?
I said, “Evi.”
He turned to me, dark and brooding.
“It is mashara’s task to protect the mission, to make sure that we all make it out of here alive.”
He was silent for a frightening split second, then he nodded and looked down. “Mashara understands.”
My heart was hammering.
Thayu led us into the passage off the main hall. “The area where the vehicles are is at the end of this corridor.”
A door stood open there and I thought I could already see the large caterpillar wheels of the desert trucks in the darkness.
We ran. I wanted so badly to get out of there, even if only to have a stern talk with Evi, to make sure that his aims were still aligned with that of our team.
A door opened as we passed. A couple of people burst out, and ran after us. From the corner of my eye, I noticed their sand-coloured clothing. They carried guns.
Nicha grabbed my arm, increasing his pace. He was a much faster runner than I was, and all I could do was watch where I put my feet so I didn’t trip.
Telaris yelled behind us. He fell back, fighting a couple of krayfish who had grabbed him by the back of his clothes. Evi whirled around, mowing them down with the butt of the gun.
Now there were krayfish in front of us, too, levelling their weapons at us.
A man shouted, “Hands up! Drop all weapons.”
We stopped, and Evi and Telaris caught up with us, but the men who had followed them caught up, too.
For a moment, everyone stared at each other. The only sound was that of heavy breathing.
The men were krayfish, dark, tall, muscular Africans. They wore sand-coloured clothing with flak jackets over the top. There were at least ten of them, all of them pointing guns at us. The leader motioned impatiently for us to drop our weapons.
We could do nothing, not even Evi with the large gun. He bent down and put it on the floor. I noticed him glancing at the weapons in the hands of the guards.
Telaris and Nicha did the same. And Thayu, with her useless gun where the charge had run out.
More men came out of doors and side passages. There was a lot of talk and signalling, but I had no idea what any of it meant.
We were frogmarched back in the direction of the pool and hall, then into a side passage. It led to a flight of stairs.
I take it you’re in trouble, Asha said in my mind while I followed Evi up the stairs, looking at his broad back.
I met Thayu’s eyes. She didn’t have a feeder that allowed her to converse with her father—she needed her reader for that—but she looked at me as if she knew what was happening, and wanted me to say yes, and wanted me to ask him for help.
I asked instead, Did you receive all the information we sent?
I did.
I need that sent on to Amarru.
He chuckled. You’re treating this link as assistance in administration now?
Amarru needs to have that material as soon as possible. Tell her that it’s all right for her to send it to the news services.
I ignored his needling. I really did not want to get further involved. The temptation to tell him to bust these crooks’ backsides off the planet was huge.
We arrived at a landing where a pair of guards stood in front of a closed door. One look at us and they opened this door, letting us into a brightly-lit foyer. It was an odd room: octagonal, with such a high ceiling that the walls were taller than a cross-section of the room. The floor was covered in diamond-shaped alternate white and red marble tiles with little gold-coloured metal strips by way of grouting. A couple of couches stood in a circle facing the centre of the room while a flame burned in a basin.
Telaris shuddered visibly. This setup reminded him of Indrahui? I’d never been there, and had assumed I never would; but I was wondering, with so many of gamra’s security personnel of Indrahui descent, if maybe there was a lesson to be learned on that world.
More guards waited on either side of a set of heavy doors. They insisted on searching us. Thayu protested, but that only prompted one of the guards to raise his gun at her.
“Let them, Thay’,” I said. “They can’t do much damage.” Every piece of information of value that we found had been sent away already.
“I object to these men touching me.”
“Try to keep calm.”
One of the soldiers shouted something at me, probably to shut up.
They pushed Thayu face first against the wall, hands up. Coldi were a good deal more intimate with friends than most Earth people were used to, but they tended not to touch enemies except after they’d been killed. Thayu let the men go through her pockets, even though she stood stiff with nerves and could easily have wiped them all aside.
They found her readers and a good deal of discussion in their language ensued. They took the equipment off he
r, placing it on one of the couches.
They also searched Evi and Telaris and took all of their electronics as well.
Evi was eyeballing one of the guards’ guns. It was a ground defence weapon similar to the one he’d lost, which the guard carried in a sling over his back.
Nicha was very quiet.
He’s recently been on the wrong end of a good number of searches and questionings at gunpoint by Nations of Earth troops. I could see the haunted memories of those on his face.
They didn’t find any weapons on any of my team. I wondered where Thayu would have hidden them, because I couldn’t believe she truly had no gun at all.
The guards then hustled Evi, Telaris, Thayu and Nicha to the other side of the room. Thayu protested, but the guns were levelled at her again. They were made to sit on the couch furthest away from the pile of electronics that was theirs.
A couple of krayfish guards stationed themselves around the couch.
One of the others now opened the set of double doors and gestured for me to come. “Mr Kray will see you now.”
As I went through, my eyes met Thayu’s. She made a gesture. I wasn’t fully versed in security’s sign language, but I thought it meant that they would continue to fight when there was a chance.
Then I went through the doorway and she disappeared from sight. I entered a luxurious living room. The theme was getting a little monotonous. The couches were white, the floor tiles were white, the carpet was white.
Mr Kray sat on the couch, with one leg crossed over the other in a relaxed fashion. I knew he was not a young man, having been at the height of his power when Evi and Telaris were young, but was surprised to see just how old and wrinkled he looked close up.
He wore—of course—a white suit, and when he smiled at me, his teeth were also white. His eyes were dark. I had never seen an Indrahui with any eye colour other than moss green, so I assumed him to be wearing coloured lenses. Although his skin was very dark, I would never have mistaken him for an African, not even the ones from southern Sudan who were graceful, tall and as dark-skinned as Indrahui people.
