Disappearing Act

by Margaret Ball

  "No, no—I really must get home." As always when he got this close to home, Chulayen felt the familiar rush of anxiety, the old fear that he would return to an empty house, doors and window shutters shattered by rifle butts, empty rooms greeting him with the memory of screams. There was no reason for such fears—but the nightmare had wakened him time after time in childhood, and it had not gone away when he married and set up his own home; it had only inspired Anusha, after six months of marriage, to take up sleeping in the outer room where, she said, at least she could get some rest. During the day Chulayen was never troubled by such irrational fears, but each evening when he returned home his steps grew quicker, his breath shallower, until he saw Neena and Neeta running to greet him and knew that all was well with his family. And here he stood exchanging banter with a Rohini street vendor! He felt in the pouch at his sash and tossed her a tul. "Here, grandmother, give your last cake to someone who needs it."

  "But the news—the news!" The old woman caught at the end of his sash, and Chulayen began to feel seriously annoyed by her impertinence. "The Arm of the Bashir has been busy today." That was the common people's term for the police employed by the Ministry for Loyalty.

  "Then that is good news for all loyal subjects," Chulayen said automatically. No one spoke against the Loyalty's men, even if some of their actions did seem a bit excessive at times.

  "Is it, Chulen? Is it?"

  The small hairs at the back of Chulayen's neck prickled at this insinuating use of his nickname. "How do you know my name, grandmother?"

  "Never mind that," the old woman said, "but if you are in such a hurry, then go—go to your house, Chulen, and then when you know how much you need my news, come back." Her black eyes sparkled bright in the tired, lined old face. Poor woman, probably she was used to augmenting her income from the pancakes by selling fortunes to ignorant common people who would be impressed by such tricks. There were a dozen ways she could have learned his name, she was on this street every day—

  There was a black space down the street, a hole in the monotonous, irregular wall created by a dozen different colors of mud houses jammed too close together for anyone larger than a child to slip between the houses. A door-shaped hole with jagged edges . . . Chulayen's steps quickened. It was almost down by his house, something must have happened next door, Anusha would have been frightened, it couldn't be his house, no reason for the Ministry for Loyalty to come there . . .

  Go home. It may not be too late.

  It's too late.

  The Arm of the Bashir has been busy today.

  Chulayen stopped in front of the splintered ruin of what had been his fine arched door, gay with blue and red painted birds, and tried to make sense of what he saw. It didn't make sense, he was dreaming, this must be old Lammon's house next door that the Arm had broken into, a rich Rohini out of place in this decent Rudhrani neighborhood . . . Lammon's door had been unpainted.

  It was still unpainted, still whole.

  Empty house, empty rooms. A spatter of blood on the doorsill. The screams of his recurring nightmare rose in Chulayen's ears, deafening him to the small sounds on the street; his children's faces swam before his eyes, blinding him to shattered shutters and a bloody splash. The nightmare again; in a moment Anusha would wake him, he felt her tugging on his sleeve now . . .

  It was only Tulaya, old Lammon's woman. "Come along inside now, dear, won't do no good to stand out in the street all mazed-like. Come you in and I'll fix you a good hot cup of kava and some of my barley soup. There's nothing to be done now, they'm long gone. Took 'un just afore shadowfall, they did."

  "Neena? Neeta? Where are they? They always run to me before I get this far."

  "All gone," Tulaya said. "Took 'em all, even the baby. Said they didn't want you, not yet. Said you'd know what to do if you want to see them again."

  Empty rooms.

  The memory of screams.

  And no waking from the nightmare now.

  Chapter Five

  Valentin on Kalapriya

  Saara stayed and chattered about life on Kalapriya until her mother called her away to dress for dinner. "And you should be dressing too, Calandra. Your escort will be calling any minute now. Ever such a nice young man, Gabrel, you'll like having him take you to the dinner and ball." Ivonna smiled. "I know, I know, you're here to work, but there's no law against having a little fun, is there?"

  "I won't be going with your family, Fru Stoffelsen?" Maris asked in dismay. She had been counting on the Stoffelsen ladies' chatter to camouflage her during the evening's festivities. Then, surely, tonight she could figure out some way to get off Kalapriya and stop playing the Diplomat.

  "That would hardly be proper," Ivonna Stoffelsen said.

  Saara lingered. "Shemeansitlookslikewe'remonopolizingyou," she whispered.

  "What?"

  "Monopolizing you," Saara repeated in a slightly louder whisper. "YesmaI'mcoming!" she shouted, and left with a friendly wave.

  Maris barely had time to scan Calandra Vissi's papers before Kamnan was fastening her into one of those complex many-paneled drapes of light organic fabric, and this escort for the formal dinner was waiting downstairs.

  Leutnant Gabrel Eskelinen. She gathered that "Leutnant" was a title connected with the blue-and-gold uniform he wore. So what did she call him? Gabrel? Haar Eskelinen? No, Fru Stoffelsen called the man "Leutnant Eskelinen" when she spoke to him. Maris covertly sized him up while Ivonna introduced them. Another tall Barentsian, hair so blond it was nearly white, cold blue eyes very light in a tanned face. The tan was the only thing that made him seem a little different from the rest. Young, but stiff as any of the old geezers who made the speeches.

  What did toppies say when they were being introduced? Maris summoned up memories of old holos and held out one hand, languidly draped downward—sometimes the guys kissed hands, on those old shows. "A pleasure—"

  "The pleasure must be entirely mine, Diplomat Vissi," the young man interrupted her. "We should depart now." A stiff bow, coming nowhere near her outstretched hand, and he wheeled and made for the door without waiting for her.

  One of the ubiquitous Kalapriyan servants helped her up into the traveling box, and Maris studied her escort's profile as he guided the—the turagai, that's what they were called—down the long shady drive leading from House Stoffelsen to the public streets of Valentin.

  Okay, she didn't know much about toppie manners, but she could tell rude when it was shoved in her face like that. Obviously this Gabrel Eskelinen disliked her.

  Intensely.

  She felt absurdly hurt, considering that they had only just met, so it couldn't be her personally he disliked, it must be Calandra Vissi. Or rather, Calandra's mission here. She supposed that was part of the job description for Diplos, getting up people's noses and asking inconvenient questions. Not to mention listening to interminable speeches, being sent to primitive dirtside locations without decent climate control, and having little machines stuck in your brain.

  This Gabrel acted like he had something stuck up his backside as well as a bad whiff of Diplo up his nose. Maris supposed really she should be grateful to have a few minutes with someone who had no questions for her—but, irrationally, she wanted this one to talk to her. She didn't like being treated like a packing canister that had to be ferried from one port to another.

  "So," she ventured as they turned into the mud-brown street outside House Stoffelsen grounds, "you got a lot of these, these boxes-on-wheels here?"

  Gabrel Eskelinen looked down his long nose at the animals pulling the box. "There's no need to be sarcastic, Diplomat Vissi. You must know as well as I do that the term is 'carriages.' I'm sure a Diplomat would never be sent out without thorough briefing on the manners and politics of her assigned posting."

  "Wish that were true," Maris said. "But as it ain't, maybe you could, like, fill me in on what's what on Kalapriya?"

  "I am, of course, entirely at the Diplomat's service," Gabrel said in a tone sug
gesting exactly the opposite. "What in particular would the distinguished Diplomat wish to know?"

  "You could start with what's got you so stuffed up," Maris suggested, "an' then go on to the gen'ral situation."

  "I am afraid I fail to take your meaning, Diplomat Vissi."

  "Why ye're narked. Canty-nosed. Zero-geed."

  As Gabrel continued to look blank, Maris groped in her Tasman vocabulary for more synonyms, then realized that was exactly the wrong thing to do. Whatever specialized training Diplomats received, they probably didn't have a dictionary chip for Tasman scumsucker slang. She'd have to keep it simple.

  "Why don't you like me?"

  "I scarcely know you, Diplomat Vissi. It would surely be premature to make personal assessments based on a few minutes' conversation."

  "Yeah, well, there wouldn't even a' been no bunu conversation if it was lef' to you, would there? Looks to me like I'm the only one making an effort here."

  Gabrel's hands twitched on the long thick strings he held and the turagai came to a stop. He let the strings fall slack and turned to face Maris. "I have been assigned a duty," he said. "My duty is to escort the distinguished Diplomat wherever she may require during her visit to Kalapriya. I prefer not to allow personal considerations to interfere with that duty, and would appreciate your doing the same."

  "Well, if actin' like a stuffed-up, narky, canty-nosed old geezer three times yer age ain't lettin' personal considerations interfere, what d'ye call it? Ye're bein' bunu rude and excuse me, but I'd kinda like to know why."

  "Because some of us, unlike the distinguished Diplomat, have better things to do than interrupting other people's work for a pleasure jaunt disguised as a survey trip!" Gabrel spat out. At last there was some color in his face: two red spots over his cheekbones, and something like cold fire in the pale blue eyes. "For your information, Diplomat Vissi, I was engaged in extremely delicate negotiations with the head of one of the Indigenous Tribal Territories when I was recalled to dance attendance on you! As a result, our relations with the hill states may not be stabilized for years! You can hardly expect me to be pleased about this, can you?"

  "If ye're pinheaded enough to take it out on me because ye don't agree with what yer bossman tells ye to do, then I'd say it's the Trading Society's good luck ye're not still doin' yer 'delicate negotiations!' " Maris snapped back. "Anybody with a temper like yers got no business tryin' to do diplomacy!"

  "Look who's talking! Diplomat Vissi? I'd expect better manners from a Tasman scumsucker!"

  Maris sucked in her breath, realizing just how fatally she'd given herself away. What now? Deportation back to Tasman?

  "Um," Gabrel said awkwardly at last. "I'm—sorry. I went too far."

  He thought she was silent because he'd insulted her.

  Even now, he didn't guess the truth.

  The pent-up breath escaped at last in a snorting attempt to suppress her laughter. Gabrel looked affronted for a moment, then began laughing too.

  "We have both behaved poorly," Maris said, aiming now for a nice, polite, toppie voice and accent. "Can we start over, do you think, Leutnant Eskelinen?"

  " 'Twould be my pleasure, Diplomat Vissi. Now, what particulars of Kalapriya can I give to add to your no doubt extensive briefing on our world?"

  Maris had had time to think since the first time he asked this question. "There are ways in which no outsider can truly understand a world," she said, loftily, as though quoting a dictum from some old professor geezer at Diplomatic School. At least she hoped that was what it sounded like. "It would most beneficially supplement me—my—briefing if you would do me the kindness to explain Kalapriya to me as you would to any totally ignorant visitor. In that way, you see, I shall have the benefit of the native viewpoint."

  "You mean the Society viewpoint," Gabrel corrected her. "We Barentsians have dealt with Kalapriya for only a few generations. Those of us who were born here may boast of being native-born, but the true natives are the Kalapriyans, the Rohini and Rudhrani—and very few in the Society trouble to understand their viewpoint, or even realize they have one!" He made some odd clucking noises and flapped his hands up and down; Maris was startled for a moment and then realized the last noises were addressed not to her, but to the animals before them, now in motion again.

  She took a moment to reply, reminding herself to try and talk like a toppie in one of them old holos. "Now that," she said slowly and carefully, "is exactly what I mean. Nothing in my briefing comes from the native Kalapriyan point of view."

  Gabrel gave her a surprised glance. "I thought you were here to follow up on Orlando Montoyasana's complaints."

  Where was the God of Looking After Insignificant Persons when you needed him? Maris had forgotten all about the orders she had so briefly skimmed back at House Stoffelsen. "He ain't—isn't—a native, though, is he? Even though he claims to represent their interests?" Nice recovery. Now try and remember who you're supposed to be.

  "Neither am I, if it comes to that."

  "No, but—" she remembered his cause for disliking escort duty "—you've spent time inland, away from the area the Barents Trading Society controls. And I do want to know all about Kalapriya, not just the coast and Valentin." Maybe there's some place away from all these blond giants where I can hide out for a while.

  "Yes. You'll need that if you're seriously investigating Montoyosana's allegations."

  "You think I'm not?"

  Gabrel shrugged. "It's never happened before."

  "Oh. You get people makin' complaints to Rezerval and Diplomats sent in to investigate all the time, do you? And this ain't the way the standard investigation works?"

  He gave her an irritated glance. "I didn't mean that. But most galactic visitors find life in the coastal enclaves quite primitive enough. They have no interest in exploring the interior, where travel is difficult and sometimes dangerous. Montoyasana himself hasn't been heard from in some weeks—not that I think anything's happened to him; he probably just stumbled on some fascinating native ceremony and wandered off without letting anyone know—but the point is, we've no real way to pull him out if he is in danger, not even to locate him."

  Danger? What do you know about danger, pretty boy? Anybody tried to kill you lately? "I expect to go wherever the needs of the investigation take me," Maris said loftily. Like on the first ship going anywhere but Tasman. She wondered if Calandra Vissi's personal credit chips would be sufficient to buy her passage off-planet. Surely a Diplomat wouldn't be sent out without adequate funds for any emergency. She hoped.

  "In that case you'll need to know a bit more about Kalapriya than the average tourist guidebook. Well, I suppose you do, being a Diplomat . . ."

  "But I want to know your idear—idea—of the place. Leutnant Eskelinen. Wasn't that why they pulled you back from yer job to show me around? Because of you bein', like, an expert on the inland areas?"

  "Well . . ."

  Some things worked on Kalapriya just like they did on Tasman, Maris thought. Flattery was one.

  Gabrel cleared his throat and began what promised to be a lengthy and informative lecture. "You'll know already, of course, that the Barents Trading Society directly governs only the coastal enclaves where our people breed and sort the bacteriomats for the interstellar trade. Just inland, along the coastal plain, the Indigenous Territories begin, all under native Kalapriyan rule . . . though in fact Barents has pretty good control of most of the plains states. The two major states bordering the coast, Vaisee and Ekanayana, were constantly at war with one another when we first settled Valentin, to the extent that neither one recognized our treaties with the other. There were also some problems with bandits. In the end we had to form our own army and go into those states to establish order. But they've settled down well enough now, and the smaller states along the coastal plains generally follow their lead. They all used to be provinces of the Empire—did your briefing cover that? No? I suppose they thought it was past history, hundreds of years ago, and not relevan
t. But it's very relevant to the Kalapriyans; half their songs and stories date back to those times. Not surprising. That was the only time of peace and prosperity they'd known until we showed up—the few generations after Dhatacharya united the tribes and named himself Emperor, until the degenerate Salbahan took the throne and oppressed the people so badly they assassinated him and vowed never to let another ruler control the whole continent. A mistake, in my opinion, but they really didn't much like Salbahan—and any time somebody looks like bringing the separate states together again peacefully, some malcontent makes speeches about Salbahan's return and the talks fall apart."

  Gabrel thought over what he'd just said, while Maris tried to keep track of the names and ideas he'd just poured over her.

  "Actually," he said in a while, "I suppose Dhatacharya's initial empire wasn't established all that peacefully, either. It would have been a matter of conquering the nation-states one by one, after all. But the point is, you're going to hear references to the Empire everywhere you go in Kalapriya, and rather more if you do go upcountry. Vaisee and Ekanayana are too comfortable under Society control to bother much with politics anymore. But the smaller states in the Hills—and the smallest don't amount to much more than a couple of villages and the grazing land in between—raid each other as a national pastime and justify it with songs about the heroic battles of the Empire. And in this generation we've got a chap with serious fantasies about restoring the Empire. A whole handful of small native states—the Seven Villages, Phalap, and most recently, Thamboon—have been absorbed into what the Bashir is beginning to call Greater Udara."

  "Another Dhatacharya." Maris nodded, just to prove she'd been paying attention.

  "In personality," Gabrel said drily, "he's rather more like Salbahan. But the leaders in the Trading Society here favor him, because he's accepted a Barents Resident to look after our interests—not that we have any interests in the hill territory, but still, I suppose we don't want these petty wars coming down to the plains and disrupting the coastal states. When I was recalled, I was in Dharampal—that's another native state in the hills—trying to persuade the Vakil to accept a Resident. I was trying to convince him that the support of the Barents Trading Society might be useful to him now that "Greater Udara" has grown right up to his borders. The trouble is that the Bashir strongly opposes any other hill state taking a Barents Resident, for obvious reasons. And the Vakil of Dharampal can see the threat that Udara poses; he can't see, can't begin to imagine, the muscle the Barents Trading Society could bring to bear against Udara if there were any of our people up there to speak for the states that are being conquered. So he's being very, very cautious."