Come the Revolution - eARC
Page 4
“Let’s get going. The sooner we’re done and out of here, the better I’ll feel.”
* * *
The five of us took a private autopod from the office suite to South Tower Atrium. The’On and Gaisaana-la spent the time going over the agenda and arguing about our negotiating position, which was bizarre. The position was simplicity itself: we were willing to talk and willing to listen, but we weren’t giving a Goddamned inch on Tweezaa’s legal rights. They weren’t ours to bargain away. But The’On and Gaisaana-la were arguing about fine points of language so subtle I couldn’t even tell the difference between them, not that my aGavoosh was anywhere near as polished as theirs. But it wasn’t long before I got the idea Gaisaana-la was just pissed at The’On and arguing on general principle. The’On was getting frustrated as well, and this wasn’t like either of them. Finally I butted in.
“What’s the problem here?”
“I do not know exactly,” The’On answered, exasperation plain in his voice.
Gaisaana-la sat quietly for a few seconds and then looked at me.
“I was not told in advance of the adoption.”
“It was very closely held,” I said. “We did not want to put you in a position where you might have to decide between telling the truth and protecting our secret.”
She nodded to the side slightly. “I appreciate that. Nevertheless, I have yet to receive any communication concerning the disposition of the office and its staff. It seems logical that Tweezaa e-Traak will live with her adoptive father, presumably in Kootrin, and that Madame Marfoglia will accompany her. One assumes part or all of the staff will either be transferred as well or will be replaced.”
“Well…with all that’s happened in the last few days we haven’t given that as much thought as it probably deserves,” I said. “Hopefully this meeting today will help settle things down and then we can figure all the rest of it out as well. I’m sure Marrissa intends you to be part of the transition planning, assuming there is much of a transition. I just don’t know yet.”
She made that small nod to the side again, her face expressionless.
“Are you offended that you were not included in the planning?” The’On asked.
“I am disturbed by the action itself. Tweezaa e-Traak is uBakai. Saying she is now suddenly uKootrin is…inauthentic. I understand the legal convenience of the move, but I wish it had been possible to negotiate a solution before the adoption was finalized. But that is meaningless now. We are committed to this course of action and I will support it to the best of my abilities.”
She sat back and stared straight ahead. I knew her well enough to know that if she said she’d give us her best game in there, she would, or at least I thought so. But she was upset, and that unsettled me.
The’On frowned, partly in embarrassment I think. I resisted the temptation to argue with her. It’s true we’d decided to preempt the opposition with the adoption. I didn’t think we did it just to take a victory lap. I thought we’d considered the options very carefully and decided this was really our one good play. I had to admit, though, we’d all felt pretty smug about it. We’d all smiled at the thought of short-circuiting all those carefully laid plans by the opposition. I didn’t think there was another way, but maybe if we’d thought harder about it we could have come up with one. Maybe, maybe not. In either case it was too late now. The train had left the station.
The question was whether our decision had compromised Gaisaana-la’s loyalty, a notion which had never occurred to me or anyone else until right that moment. And if it had compromised it, what did that mean in material terms?
“Atrium still calm?” I asked ah-Quan. He hesitated before answering, studying the video feed through his viewer glasses.
“Still calm, but more Varoki than before. Not moving, just waiting for something.”
I glanced at Borro, who had overheard the exchange. He pulled his gauss pistol from his shoulder holster and checked the charge level and flechette magazine.
“They aren’t going to let you take that into the council chambers,” I said.
“That assumes we actually get there,” he answered.
Ah-Quan unholstered his own gauss pistol, which looked about twice the size of Borro’s, and checked it as well. I hadn’t brought a sidearm, and as I sat there I wondered why.
The autopod decelerated smoothly to a stop and I could see the main atrium through the clear transit tube even before the doors slid open. The atrium was at least a hundred meters tall, lined with open vine-draped balconies from each of the levels above and below us. The tube station deposited us four levels up from the broad plaza. The plaza’s floor was an elaborate terra cotta mosaic surrounding a tall fountain, topped by a metallic abstract sculpture, a sparkling, whispering irregular column of polished metal and cascading water which climbed at least fifty meters up the center of the atrium. But the beauty was marred by the hundreds—no, thousands—of Varoki lining all of the balcony railings in the atrium, all the way up to the top, unmoving, silently staring at us.
You know what’s scarier than a couple thousand angry people? A couple thousand silent, motionless people—scarier and infinitely more creepy. I was about to get everyone back into the autopod when I saw a familiar Varoki striding down the broad corridor stretching south toward the riverside wing of the tower, none other than my old pal from the cocktail party, Elaamu Gaant, best-selling author of inspirational, motivational, and self-improvement tracts, and self-proclaimed mastermind behind the Edict for the Preservation of Familial Assets.
“Well, well,” I said, “look who’s here. I didn’t see you on the guest list for this sit-down, Mr. Gaant.”
“Possibly an oversight,” he said. “Ah, and this would be the Honorable e-Lotonaa. It is a pleasure to meet you, sir,” he said turning to The’On, bowing slightly and raising his open hands to shoulder height, the old Varoki equivalent of a handshake. The’On returned the gesture without the bow. More and more Varoki had adopted the Human habit of actually shaking hands, but lately there’d been a growing backlash against borrowed Human customs. Gaant was clearly a traditionalist.
“I have heard of your speeches and recordings, Mr. Gaant,” The’On said. “I understand they are quite popular. Allow me to introduce Madame Gaisaana-la, who will speak for Tweezaa’s guardian, Madame Marfoglia.”
Gaisaana-la bowed but did not offer her open hands. Gaant barely nodded in response. Was that the run-of-the-mill Varoki traditionalist dismissal of a female in a position of responsibility? Or was it an attempt to disguise a relationship or alliance? Or was that just my paranoia talking?
“Madame Marfoglia could not join us?” Gaant asked.
“Security concerns precluded it,” I answered. I glanced up and around at the thousands of quiet, staring faces in the atrium. “Pretty good call, I’m thinking.”
Gaant smiled and tilted his head to the side. “These people? Why would you fear them? They are residents of this arcology and have the right to travel anywhere in it. They do not create a disturbance and do nothing to threaten you. I think any fair observer would find your objection to them unreasonable.”
The smugness in his voice made up my mind.
“Okay, folks, back in the autopod,” I said, and turned to leave.
“Wait!” Gaant said. “Please. Lives may be saved by these talks. I am sorry if your own neighbors frighten you, but I have come to escort you personally to the talks. No harm will befall you while I am with you.”
“Yeah? And what about afterwards? What about getting out of this with our skins intact?”
Gaant spread his arms wide. “I will accompany you again, if it will make you happy. Really, Mr. Naradnyo, you have no grounds to distrust me. At our last meeting I was more forthcoming to you concerning my intentions than you were to me.”
“Don’t pull that crap on me. We were both exactly as forthcoming as served our purposes.”
Gaant looked at me for a moment, maybe trying to assess my intentio
ns, then he walked to the nearest railing, raised his head, and called out in a voice which filled the atrium. If nothing else, the guy had a good set of lungs.
“People of Praha-Riz, you know me. These people are my guests. I ask you to extend them the same courtesy you would me. Will you do this thing?”
“Yes!” a thousand voices barked in unison like a thunderclap, a solid wall of sound I felt hit me like a tsunami, a wave of sound that made the water flowing down the sculpture spray out from the metal, echoed in the atrium, and made the hanging vines shiver. The hair rose on my arms and neck as a jolt of adrenaline surged through me. Beside me The’On’s and Gaisaana-la’s ears flattened back and their skin turned pale. Borro’s ears and skin remained unaltered, as if he were a statue. That was the result of years of training and probably more violent encounters than I wanted to know about. Behind me, ah-Quan belched again.
Gaant turned back to us, the same soft smile on his face.
“You see? You have nothing to fear here. And I assure you, Sasha Naradnyo, you will find this meeting enormously interesting. Others in the meeting will be as surprised as you at the course it takes, and I think you will want to see their surprise with your own eyes.”
Something in the way he said that convinced me. He had set some sort of ambush here, but we weren’t the targets. The targets were the assholes who had been making my and Marr’s and Tweezaa’s life one drama after another for two solid years. Would I stick around and watch them brought down a peg? I nodded and we followed Gaant down the south corridor. After about twenty meters or so I heard murmured conversation behind me and turned to see ah-Quan handing his big gauss pistol and spare magazines over to Borro. I stopped until they caught up, then walked beside them and gave Borro a questioning look.
“You will look after The’On during the meeting,” he said.
Despite the gravity of the situation I couldn’t help but smile. I’d never heard Borro call The’On anything but his given name or formal title, never the nickname I’d given him. Borro saw my grin and bobbed his head to the side.
“Yes, that little slip will remain our secret, yes?”
“Where you gonna be?” I asked.
“We cannot take our weapons in, and three unarmed security guards will be no more use than two. There is no guarantee that weapons surrendered at the security station will be returned when and if needed. I will stay out here and observe. As a Varoki, I can blend into the crowd. If there is treachery, I will be free to act.”
“Yeah, good thinking,” I said. I looked back at the silent crowd which now filled the corridor, walking slowly after us. “So tell me—not that we’ve got much choice now—but is going into this meeting as stupid as I’m starting to think it is?”
“Oh, no,” he answered. “Much more so than that.”
Chapter Six
We passed through a security station manned by Munies and into the chambers of the Good-Soul Counseling House. Counseling on Varoki worlds was generally what we called lawyering, although the services offered were a bit broader and usually included legislative lobbying, mediation, financial planning, and astrology.
Varoki astrology was different from the terrestrial version, but most civilizations that start out as agricultural societies—like us and the Varoki—end up pretty interested in the seasons, moon phases, calendars, all that stuff. Early religions get built around the movement of the stars, and when more sophisticated religions displace them, the older ones turn into superstition. Superstition waxes and wanes in popularity, as near as I can tell depending upon how shitty life is. For the last dozen years it had been pretty bad for a lot of folks, and it seemed to be getting worse. The Varoki were on top of the heap and hadn’t felt the hard times right away, but they were beginning to. Trade, commerce, all that stuff just wasn’t ticking along quite as well as it used to, and it seemed like every economist had a different theory as to why it was happening and what to do about it. Some of them had two theories. I suppose that explained why astrology was a growth industry again, along with charismatic motivationalists like Gaant. It explained it psychologically, anyway. It didn’t make it any less stupid.
The meeting room’s south wall was floor-to-ceiling composite windows overlooking the Wanu River, about twenty meters down. The water was nearly a kilometer wide here. The south wall of the arcology was almost right on the river, with just a walking path between the building foundations and the bank. A mix of commercial barge traffic and small, fast-looking private boats drew long, fading white lines of wake on the dark river surface.
A smart surface covered the office wall opposite the river windows, with open floor space in front for holographic displays, either for presentations or remote conferencing. The smart surface was a neutral warm gray today, though. This meeting was strictly skin-time.
Yes. Are you there?
We weren’t expecting Gaant. Does that mean trouble?
Silence for a long moment.
Be careful, she transmitted.
Careful? I figured I’d already blown that by not getting back into the autopod.
The polished stone surface of a long table down the center of the room reflected the afternoon sun just starting to emerge from rainclouds and overcast. Twelve chairs lined each side. The side nearest the dormant smart wall already held eleven expensively-dressed Varoki males, most of whom I recognized by sight even though I’d only met two of them. Three wore the ceremonial gray robes of an uBakai wattaak, while most of the rest wore colorful and expensive business suits, most of them made of shimmering metallic fabric. Our folks were, by contrast, dressed conservatively, almost austerely, in solid-color suits, gray for Gaisaana-la and The’On wearing the dark green of the field service uniform of the Executive Council’s Corps of Counselors.
I saw Vandray e-Bomaan, the second governor of AZ Simki-Traak, whom I’d stood five feet from at several corporate functions without him ever giving an indication he recognized my existence. I was surprised to see someone that high up in the official hierarchy. Bringing him in meant they were either confident or desperate, and I had no idea which.
A second long table backed it up with administrative staffers, also mostly male, lining it. On our side The’On and Gaisaana-la sat across from the opposition, the other ten chairs empty. Ah-Quan and I stood behind them, our backs to the giant windows. Ah-Quan and I were also the only non-Varoki in the place. The set-up, with all those bodies packing their side of the room, was clearly meant to intimidate us, show us how much combined power and expertise we were up against.
Gaant sat down in the remaining open chair on the opposition side of the table and a Varoki seated at the head of the table spoke.
“Ah, I am Counselor Rimcaant, vice-governor of the Good-Soul Counseling House, and I have been, ah, asked by the Group of Interest to preside over this meeting. I thank all of you for agreeing to attend. I now advise everyone to power down your embedded commlinks. This is a, ah, private negotiating session and the house communication jammers will activate in thirty seconds.” He sat back and waited.
I love you, she answered.
And then I was alone with the faint background hum of the comm jammers. Jamming meant that no one would be able to communicate, of course, and also would be unable to access their float memory. Everyone had hand readers or viewers with onboard memory, loaded with whatever data they needed for the meeting. But the purpose wasn’t to limit access to information, it was to keep it private and unrecorded.
“Mr. Naradnyo, would you and your, ah, associate care to sit?” Counselor Rimcaant asked. “There are many empty chairs on your side of the table.”
“I did not come here to sit across from a criminal,” e-Bomaan, the AZ Sim
ki-Traak second governor, said, his ears folding back against his head. The Varoki to his left, lead counsel for the firm representing the other heirs of the e-Traak family, nodded in agreement.
“Mr. Naradnyo is not a criminal,” Gaisaana-la said with steel in her voice, but e-Bomaan did not even glance at her.
“That’s all right,” I said. “I’d prefer to stand.”
“What did you come here for?” The’On asked.
Governor e-Bomaan leaned back in his chair and made a vague hand gesture. “We came to negotiate a compromise.” I noticed he didn’t look around for approval to speak, so The’On had pegged the head guy right out of the gate, and by making it a conversation between the two of them, he’d turned this whole roomful of other folks meant to intimidate us into a bunch of spectators. He was good at this.
“Compromise?” The’On said. “Compromise of what? Of Tweezaa e-Traak-Lotonaa’s legal rights?”
“You mean you are not willing to negotiate?” e-Bomaan shot back.
“Please,” Mr. Rimcaant said from the head of the table, making calming gestures with his hands. “Let us, ah, proceed in a polite and orderly manner. I am sure all of us here want the same thing.”
I looked at him and about half the heads in the room turned as well, all thinking: Want the same thing? Is he crazy? He must have noticed the reaction.
“All of you want an end to the violence, do you not?” he said. “Whatever your goals, they were not advanced by the, ah, disturbances yesterday. Sakkatto City is not only the capital city of Bakaa, but also the economic hub of our homeworld, and the Varoki homeworld is the, ah, epicenter, yes the epicenter of all major economic activity in explored space. The Cottohazz holds its breath, waiting to see what will happen here next.”