The Privilege of Peace

by Tanya Huff

  For what?

  “Presit . . .”

  They stepped toward the plastic.

  “Presit!”

  She poked a finger into Torin’s thigh. “Not now! We are going to be getting answers!”

  One way or another seemed to be implied.

  Girstin closed his teeth on the edge of the data sheet, the arc in his mouth no more than half a centimeter wide at the deepest point. He straightened, chewing, arms raised, and the crowd roared. Most of the scientists were on their feet, slates in hand. “Tastes like . . .”

  “Look!” cried a multitude of voices as fine appendages pointed toward the projection.

  The symbols flickered, running left to right, then right to left. Moving faster and faster, until they moved at the speed Dr. Lushin had used in zir presentation.

  “Mictok!” Torin’s voice was pure gunnery sergeant. “Eyes down!”

  The Mictok from the front row of the bleachers scrambled to join the two sitting behind her and they began webbing themselves together. Another group of three higher up in the stands followed their example. The military could take care of themselves—Torin was a Warden now; the civilians were her responsibility. The scientists were on their feet.

  “Those are new!”

  “They’ve never . . .”

  “Recording this . . .”

  “Out of my way!”

  “. . . my instruments!”

  “You’re an idiot!”

  “Stop right there!” Torin held up a hand, and the advancing scientists rocked to a halt. “No one comes any closer!”

  Dr. Lushin’s tail lashed and zir ears flattened. “You don’t tell us what to do, Warden, we . . .”

  The sheet rippled like a Polint dislodging a fly, froze, then the symbols spilled off the bottom. Torin looked down expecting to see an alien forming on the dais, didn’t, realized it had been an illusion created by the constant downward movement, and looked up.

  A set of six symbols appeared in the center of the sheet.

  Disappeared.

  Appeared again.

  Torin felt her hair lift and the barbed feet of a thousand tiny insects against her skin.

  Disappeared.

  Appeared again.

  Dr. Lushin was shouting at her. Torin ignored him.

  Always the same sequence.

  Faster.

  Torin met Craig’s eyes, grabbed Girstin’s wrist and swung him away from the plastic as Craig wrapped both arms around Presit and dove behind the podium.

  “EVERYONE DOWN! EYES CLOSED!”

  Girstin stared up at her in rising panic as they hit the dais, and Torin rolled them so her body sheltered his.

  “Close your eyes!” she snapped.

  He fought her grip but closed his eyes, and the world went white.

  The thousands of insects returned although this time they were the size of the Mictok and they were pissed.

  One Dornagain. Torin used to count by H’san. Not anymore. Two Dornagain. Three Dornagain.

  And it was over.

  They’d been slammed against the lower supports of the bleachers with enough force that, had they been standing, they’d have been organic missiles fired into the dignitaries. Girstin had hit the supports first and, given the strength of Krai bone, that had probably saved Torin.

  His eyes were open again. Pupils slightly dilated.

  She couldn’t see any blood. “Are you hurt?”

  It took her a heartbeat to realize he couldn’t speak because his mouth was full of her arm.

  Then the pain hit.

  “God fukking damnit, recruit! Teeth!”

  Flushing a deep green, he jerked his head back, clanged against the support, and said, “I’m not a recruit.”

  “Lucky for you.”

  Her uniform had kept him from breaking the skin, but she wasn’t sure about the bone. The Justice Department had saved money by leaving the medical sensors out of their dress uniforms, not that it would have mattered as the sweat dribbling down her sides suggested her environmental controls had been fried. When one set went, the others seldom survived.

  “Torin!”

  “Alive.” She coughed at the bite of chlorine against the back of her throat. Right arm cradled diagonally across her chest, hand tucked into the top of her tunic to hold it there, she got to her knees, rocked back onto her heels, and stood, her eyes beginning to water. The bleachers remained standing, about half their occupants sprawled across the far end, the rest scattered on the ground. The Mictok remained safely secured, webbed in place, and the lower three had been joined by Dr. Lushin, thrown against the webbing before it dried. Torin didn’t entirely blame Lushin for the screaming or the frantic lashing of zir orange-and-cream-striped tail. When a Mictok claw slid through the webbing and poked zir in the side, ze fainted.

  There was surprisingly little screaming going on, although she could hear moaning, cursing, praying, and someone barking out orders under the bleachers. As she turned, she heard a child shrieking, but couldn’t tell the species.

  The crowd at the far side of the plaza had panicked and run. The PLE had kept the exits open, and it looked like there’d been a minimal number of bodies taken down in the crush. People closer to the dais were in worse shape, and it was obvious who’d had a trained response to Torin’s order and who hadn’t. The pulse had gone out at dais level, passing harmlessly over those flat on the ground. The di’Taykan sergeant knelt beside a Niln, one hand applying pressure against a puncture, the other unwinding a diaphanous scarf from around her neck. About a third of the Younger Races in the plaza were tending to the wounded, bullying those closest into helping, but there weren’t enough. Then, over the sound of the puking and the sobbing and the denial, Torin heard sirens.

  She put her finger and thumb in her mouth and whistled. Heads turned. Pointing toward the only area almost clear enough for an EM vehicle to land, she yelled, “Medical incoming, people! Make a space!”

  Then she coughed up drops of blood, the volume having ripped lines in the chlorine-tenderized lining of her throat.

  The first of the ships came out of the sun, skimmed in over the surrounding buildings . . .

  At least half of the veterans on the ground dropped flat. Torin didn’t blame them.

  . . . and settled, disgorging medical personnel before it was fully on the ground.

  “Props to their emergency response teams,” Craig breathed out behind her. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

  His eyes and nose had run silver trails of moisture into his beard and while she wasn’t far enough gone to think he’d never looked better, he looked pretty damned good. “Probably broken.”

  “We should . . .” He reached for her arm, but she stepped back.

  “Krai bite. It’s stabilized. No need to look until it can be repaired.”

  “There’s blood on your lips.”

  “There’s snot in your beard. In the words of Hollice,” she added as he opened his mouth, “not my first rodeo. Come on.”

  No one had died, not on the dais, not on the plaza, but that been luck. There were broken bones, lacerations, punctures, and two panic-induced heart attacks. It was probably best Dr. Lushin remained unconscious as the Mictok carried zir to the medics. EM vehicles moved in and out of the plaza, directed by the growing number of PLE on the ground.

  Torin did the kind of first aid that required neither an intimate knowledge of the species in question nor two arms. When the last injury on the dais had been taken over by the professionals, she allowed Craig to sit her down in front of a medic. Her arm had swollen to fill the sleeve of her tunic.

  “Krai bite,” she explained.

  “I are giving my compliments to your uniform,” the Katrien medic muttered, pulling out a syringe. “Pain?”

  “About a seven.” Maybe
an eight now nothing was distracting her.

  “It are going to be an eleven when I are cutting you free. So . . .”

  The painkiller spread like a rush of cold down Torin’s arm and the sudden absence of pain made her a little light-headed.

  “I don’t know why you had to wait,” Craig growled as the medic sliced through the fabric.

  “Because I could.”

  “There were injures less serious seen sooner.”

  About to shrug, she reconsidered. “They were on people who were a lot more distressed.”

  “I hate that you’re used to . . . Fukking hell, Torin!”

  Blunt force trauma from Krai teeth had detached a chunk of forearm muscle, wobbling loose inside rapidly darkening skin within bands of compacted tissue.

  “Luckily, you are having nerve damage.”

  Torin appreciated the way emergency medical personnel were the same competent take-no-shit miracle workers no matter the uniform. “I thought I might be.”

  “The absence of screaming are probably giving it away.” The medic slid Torin’s arm into a medical sleeve, glanced at the display, cycled through the programs, and pressed enter. “This are being enough for now,” she said as the sleeve stiffened, “but I are wanting you at the hospital to be exchanging it for a higher functioning version as soon as you can. We are having no more transport, or I’d be sending you myself. It are having been registered,” she added, “and they’ll be expecting you, so don’t be thinking of skipping out.”

  “Why would . . .”

  “I are not having to go to war to be knowing a Marine when I are working on one. Open your mouth.”

  The spray tasted like fish. Torin considered spitting, but at the medic’s glare swallowed instead.

  “That are not being so bad, are it? It are all I have left and that are what you are getting when you wait for whiny kits with nothing more than bruising to be seen first.” She rolled her shoulders back and, for a moment looked exhausted. A line of fur along her arm had clumped into a row of hard, triangular tufts, the brown darkened to almost black. Then she shook herself, straightened, and continued. “It are made for Katrien, but it are being a surface analgesic that are having broad species parameters to be neutralizing the damage in your throat.” Her case closed, she straightened and patted Craig’s hand. “Good luck.”

  “What is it with you and Katrien?” Torin asked as the medic hurried away.

  “Damned if I know.” He sagged against her uninjured side.

  Torin stretched out her legs beside his and stared down at the rust-colored stains on the pale gray.

  “One of the reasons the Corps wears black?” he asked.

  “Yeah, well, bloodstains are bad for morale.”

  “And here you are being, back on the bleachers.” Presit approached, holding Girstin by the ear, her claws sunk into flesh. She gave him a little shake as they came to a stop. “Be speaking up.”

  Girstin’s nostril ridges were shut tight, but that might have been due to the amount of fur Presit shed with every movement. Eyes locked on the medical sleeve, he mumbled, “I’m sorry I bit you, Warden Kerr.”

  “There.” Presit gave him another shake. “Was that being so hard? Now, go. Be finding out when, exactly, the camera drones are having cut out.” She watched him scuttle away, limping slightly, and sighed. “He are trying to tell me, it wasn’t having been his fault. It was being his teeth and his jaw, though, wasn’t it? I are thinking he are not being cut out for investigative . . .”

  “You knew!” The approaching Niln wasn’t military or a scientist, so he had to be a politician. He wore a medical sleeve on his tail and an agitated expression. “I was watching you, Warden Ryder, and you knew before the data sheet blew. How did you know?”

  Craig sighed. “It was obvious, wasn’t it, mate? Sequence kept speeding up—it was revving its engine.” He stood and held out a hand. Torin decided that not only was discretion the better part of valor, but the last of the adrenaline had been chased off by the pain meds the medic had given her, and she really didn’t want to face-plant in front of Presit who’d never let the universe forget it. Craig all but lifted her to her feet, steadying her as she swayed with a hand in the small of her back. “Come on, let’s not keep the hospital waiting.”

  Tongue tasting the air, the Niln stepped in front of them, blocking their path. “I don’t know what revving its engine means.”

  “Not my problem.” Craig scowled down at him. “Now, piss off.”

  “His vortees are being injured, Minister.” Presit pushed between them. “Let me be explaining to you his idiom.” She tucked her hand in the crook of the Niln’s elbow and steered him over toward the entrance to the building, shooting an easily identifiable you owe me glare back over her shoulder.

  “Let’s hope that minister isn’t in finance,” Torin murmured, leaning on Craig because she wanted to. “The commander won’t be happy if I’ve pooched his budget.”

  “I don’t give a fuk.”

  “Good for you.”

  They passed two clumps of scientists bent over their slates, arguing data.

  “I thought the slates were dead?”

  “Out here. Slates inside the building were unaffected. Those are replacements.”

  Torin made a noncommittal noise as she watched an argument break out about wavelengths. “They must be pulling data from the satellites.”

  “Still don’t give a fuk.”

  Without symbols, the hanging data sheet looked like an orange tarp.

  “Kerr!”

  “Hey.” Torin grabbed Craig’s arm and hauled him to a stop as General Morris pushed his way through a clump of junior officers standing by the big double doors, resisting the efforts of the PLE to move them inside. “Let him talk. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  General Morris hadn’t changed. He was still heavyset, florid, and frowning. He still had two stars on his collar and resentment for the missing third showed in his eyes. “You could have stopped her, Kerr!”

  “General Morris.” She straightened, squaring her shoulders. “Sir, you remember Craig Ryder?”

  He opened his mouth, closed it again, thrown by her response. “Did you not hear me?” he managed at last.

  “Yes, sir.” Holding his gaze, she waited.

  The general cleared his throat. “Warden Ryder.”

  Craig remained silent, but Torin assumed he’d nodded as General Morris returned his attention to her. “I’m curious how you think I could have stopped Presit a Tur durValintrisy. Confederation law gives the press full access to government procedures, and this was her first opportunity to get close to the plastic. If she’d been given access previously, as the law allows, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “And you’d know about the law, wouldn’t you?” he growled, trying for full bluster and failing.

  “Yes, sir, I would.”

  “You could have refused to touch the data sheet!”

  “Touching the data sheet had no effect.”

  “You could have stopped that Krai!”

  “How?”

  “You’re twice his size, and you’ve never hesitated getting physical before.”

  If she hadn’t hesitated, he’d be dead, and they both knew that. “Why?”

  “What?”

  “Why would I stop Per Girstin?”

  “So that . . .” He waved a hand at the empty dais. “. . . wouldn’t have happened?”

  “You knew there’d be an energy discharge if Per Girstin bit the data sheet?” Warden voice wasn’t quite the same as gunnery sergeant voice, but it was close.

  “What?”

  She pulled her slate from her belt and thumbed on the voice recorder. “General Morris, did you know the discharge would happen if Per Gristen bit the data sheet?”

  “No!”

 
“Thank you. If we need more information, we know where to find you.”

  “That will . . . You don’t . . .” Confused, he stepped back. Nodded once and turned to go.

  “Oh, General Morris.” When he turned back toward her, Torin smiled the smile a gunnery sergeant would give a two-star general. “If you would, please give my regards to Captain Stedrin.”

  His back straightened. “I’m not your social secretary, Kerr. And Stedrin didn’t re-up.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir.” The general’s aide had been evolving into the kind of staff officer the Corps needed.

  “And if you’d stayed in the Corps, that would matter.” Bluster returned, he pivoted on one heel and strode toward the building, a Krai lieutenant hurrying out to meet him.

  “He was willing to sacrifice himself to bring the Silsviss into the Confederation,” she replied to Craig’s expression. “He misread the situation, and it was a weird last shot at glory thing, but he was willing. I respect that.”

  “Still want to punch him?”

  She thought about it for a moment. About Haysole, and Aylx, and Glicksohn, and the others who’d died on Silsviss because of General Morris’ plan. Of hauling Captain Travik’s body through the bowels of Big Yellow. “Hell, yes.”

  “But you don’t make gunnery sergeant by punching asshole officers.” He steered them past the podium, still smelling of fried technology. “They should make that a recruiting slogan.”

  “It’s covered in basic.” The di’Taykan sergeant was with the last cluster of people leaving the plaza. When she turned to face the dais, Torin straightened and nodded. Her hair flipped out and she nodded back. At that moment, they understood each other as well as any two people could. “It’s not just violence we learn,” Torin said softly and added before Craig could ask what she was talking about, “We need to put together a sitrep for Commander Ng.”

  “After the hospital.”

  She froze as she stepped onto the plaza, rocking in place as Craig took another step, his arm around her waist. The bleachers had been mostly empty. The Mictok had been webbed in. Dr. Lushin had been stuck to the lower trio. One by one, she placed the people she remembered in the places she remembered them. “Did you see the H’san after the blow?” she asked as Craig turned toward her, brows up.