by Patty Jansen
Someone else said, I hope the police are reading this. You do understand that impersonation is a criminal offence and that electronic mail is traceable?
I scrolled down further—
No. I must write to Eva first. Tell her that I had written to her and ask her if—
Nothing from Danziger or Delia or Amarru. Nothing from Nixie Chan about Nicha.
Who had been blocking my messages?
I breathed out, closing my eyes.
I could almost hear Eva’s voice, Work, work, work. Do you ever think about anything else?
The truth was, and I might as well admit it, I didn’t. I was my work, totally committed to the project that had grown from a small suggestion I had made to Sirkonen many years ago. I lived the project, I breathed it. I might be stuck here forever because of it, but if I didn’t believe in it, then who else would?
Not World Newspoint obviously. Not Nations of Earth, who seemed to have cast me adrift like a malfunctioning satellite. Who was blocking my messages?
I had to answer Eva.
I opened a blank message screen on another patch of air and slid the thought sensor behind my ear. No typing—thank the heavens.
Dear Eva,
That sounded stupid. Delete.
My love,
No. The whole technologically-enabled universe was watching me. Delete.
Eva,
Not ideal, but heck, I’d think of something more endearing before I hit send.
I stared at the blank page. Saw Eva’s face as she had kissed me goodbye, not knowing that I’d leave, saw the silhouettes of her parents in the hall of her house, always watching what she was doing. Her street blocked off, her house besieged by journalists. She would be terrified.
I remembered how I had first met her, at a Victorian ball organised by a group of wives of Nations of Earth ambassadors. I had happened to be visiting from Athens, and had been invited along to the matchmaking ball by someone in Delia’s office, a girl who had long since left, and had probably had an eye on me and who knew I was looking for a woman after my painful break-up with Inaru had been publicised. Instead, I had become enchanted by the daughter of the Polish ambassador, and had dived headlong into a quaint society of dinners and balls, public morality and abstinence before marriage. Far removed from the New Colonist society of which I had been a part since I was ten. Ichi and ata-ichi.
Eva, with the innocent brown eyes.
The message was still as blank as ever.
Thayu sat in the corner of the room. A slight frown made the hairs of her eyebrows stand up. Inaru used to look just like that, and then the next thing she’d say something hilarious and break into laughter.
Would Thayu have the same wry sense of humour? I’d seen some of it yesterday.
Damn, I was supposed to be writing to Eva.
What would I write? I couldn’t, couldn’t write her a fake good-news letter. With everyone watching, I couldn’t tell her the truth either. I have no money and it looks like Nations of Earth no longer want to know about me.
Besides, there was no need to alarm her. Eva was safe with her parents. Eva might be upset by a picket line of journalists outside her house and some malicious gossip, and yes, I knew that was not very nice, but her father knew about potential risk involved in these types of situations. He had security staff at his disposal. There was no need to say, Look, Mr Zbrowsky, it might be wise if you kept your daughter away from anyone you call a “chan” for a while. She might be a target for kidnapping.
Would Asto do that, if they were really involved in the whole mess? That was not at all the style of the Asto military. Never discount anything, of course, but in the history I had read of Asto, their policy was shoot first, ask questions later. OK, so let’s just presume they had shot. Where were the questions?
Oh, confound it. My mind was wandering all over the place. I needed to think about this letter, and I didn’t feel comfortable with both Devlis and Thayu watching me like cats before a mouse hole.
I grabbed my reader, pushed myself from the chair and strode out of the room, across the hall, through the sitting room. I opened the doors to the balcony and stepped into the hot midday air. The heavy scent of tropical flowers enveloped me. I leaned on the railing, looking out over the marshland that glittered in sunlight like a bath of mercury. A few flat-bottomed boats travelled lazily along the channels between the reeds. For a moment I pictured myself in such a boat. Nicha sat opposite me and on the floor stood a picnic basket. Way out beyond sight, following the currents across the marshes, the delta ended in a sand spit where the water tasted like liquorice and waves crashed on the shore. Waves perfect for surfing. On the other side of the island city, where the escarpment met the marsh, there was a lagoon surrounded by lush forest where water steamed in pools of pink and orange.
I’d seen pictures.
When all this trouble was over, I should find the time to see these things for myself. With Nicha.
A bench stood in the corner of the balcony. A tree in a planter box cast dappled shadows over the wooden seat. I sat down and balanced the reader on my lap. A sting reminded me that I was favouring my right hand today, and that simply picking something up with my left hand required bending the fingers, and that was just too painful. At least I could stop shivering here.
I tucked the thought-sensor behind my ear.
So what could I write to Eva?
I have arrived safely and everything is fine.
No. Delete that. I was not on a holiday; she knew that.
I just want to say I’m fine, and have arrived safely, contrary to what the gossip press might say.
Oh, it wasn’t just the gossip press, and language like this sounded too stiff. I wasn’t writing a political document. Delete.
Eva, don’t worry about me, no matter what people say. I am fine, and starting work here in Barresh. No one has kidnapped me. Not entirely true, but what the heck, I had a start. There are reasons why I had to come here quickly, and in time, those reasons will be revealed. No, scratch that, try again. I can’t tell you why I had to come here so quickly. There are reasons which I didn’t know when I left your house. I wish it had been different.
I have been given a very large apartment here overlooking the water . . . and I carried on a bit about the accommodation and the city, and imagined she would still like to come, but had no idea how that would ever come to pass, or at least not in the near future. Not unless I could convince Danziger that continuing the position would be a good idea, and he didn’t seem inclined that way at the moment.
I sat back and read over my efforts, intensely dissatisfied. I was dying to ask her what was going on with Danziger, but that would upset her and would make me look desperate. People were watching this link. The whole section about the apartment felt like crap. The apartment wasn’t mine; I couldn’t even pay for it. Maybe the people watching the link would get the message and transfer the money.
Wishful thinking.
I concluded with Love, Cory and then sent it before I could change my mind. And then I felt awful because I should of course have asked if she had looked at wedding dresses yet, since that would be the most important thing on her mind. It was just that . . .
Get married? In a madhouse like this?
I couldn’t offer the kind of life I wanted to give Eva, and I surely wasn’t going to rely, no matter how temporarily, on her father’s charity, suffering his I told you those chans are bad news looks.
Nor was I going to take a desk job at Nations of Earth.
But to stay here, I needed money. With the code I’d been given at the Ledger, I logged onto my account, not that anything had changed there. As soon as the bill came for this apartment, I’d be in deep trouble. Eithe
r I would have to borrow money, or acknowledge that I was indebted to whoever owned the apartment, whoever they were and whatever leverage they would hold against me.
No, I’d best try to pre-empt that situation. I’d look for work independent of my position, so that if Nations of Earth wanted to play the standoff game, I could hold out.
A job.
Surely, gamra had a fair share of rich people in need of a translator to iron idiocies out of mechanical efforts.
The Trader Guild for example. I had a vision of myself sitting at a desk, writing a letter. Dear Kazakhstani rebel leader, the shipment of arms ordered by you is now underway. . . .
I buried my face in my hands and groaned.
And yelped with pain. It was as if someone slashed a knife across my left palm. For a while I sat there, breathing deeply.
When I looked up, Thayu stood at the door. She said nothing while she came out, crossed the balcony and sat down in the sun, her legs flat on the hot pavement. I remembered painfully how Nicha did this, too, soaking up heat. A very Coldi thing to do. Nicha said it made his body temperature rise by a few degrees. He said it was pleasant. Coldi could drop their body temperature to as low as 40 degrees, but Nicha said that around 45 degrees was much more comfortable.
Sunlight caught in Thayu’s glittering hair, leaving her face in shadow. Her gaze flicked to the reader on my lap. “She is the woman of your contract?” We were back to friendly pronouns.
“Yes.”
As far as I knew, Coldi female officials who had a male zhayma usually had a contract with the same person. Someone like Amarru, whose “husband” worked in permit processing. People at the Exchange had gossiped about their relationship a lot, since Amarru had re-signed for no less than ten years. Heavens above, could they actually be in love with each other?
“Eva is . . . worried about me.”
“When does your contract with her start?”
“When I was scheduled to visit.”
“After that, would she come here?”
“That was the plan.”
I stared at her arms, soft and yellow-skinned, trying to decide if her voice gave away any emotion. I had no doubt she had come into my apartment expecting a sexual relationship with me. Was she disappointed or glad that it was not going to happen?
“What were the conditions of the partnership?”
What a typically Coldi question. “There are no conditions.” Other than do not fool around with others. “Our partnerships are for love, and for life.”
“You must care a lot for her, then.”
The lack of emotion in her voice disturbed me. “Do you have any family?”
“My father.”
“What about. . . ?” I couldn’t help my gaze straying to her breasts. She had a child, somewhere.
She shrugged. “He lives with his father.”
“How old?”
“Four.”
That would make her about my age, counting in gamra years, unless she meant four in Asto years, which meant that either she was older than me or she had been very young when she gave birth.
“Do you ever see him?”
“No.” She gazed out over the marshlands. A muscle twitched in her jaw.
Damn, I shouldn’t have asked.
When I had been with Inaru, I had always felt that our relationship wasn’t serious for her, that Coldi treated family relationships like paper wrappers: useful until you got to the lolly in the middle. Even in Nicha, I had never felt he actually loved his mother, nor had I felt Nicha would form a steady relationship with a woman. I hadn’t thought Coldi had a need for this sort of thing.
I had been wrong.
I rose from the bench, and put a hesitant hand on her shoulder. “You have the right to have one more child.” I was not so foolish as to suggest that she contact the father to see her son. The contract was finished; he was out of her life. That was the Coldi way.
“No. My father has already arranged a contract. It’s worth a lot. I wouldn’t have the funds to . . .”
I swallowed hard. That was where my relationship with Inaru had faltered. I could keep her, she had said, if I paid out the other man. To which I had replied that I wasn’t about buying people and she could either come with me if she loved me, or not at all.
And she had run away.
I stared unseeingly over the marshlands. In my mind, I saw her on the beach of a Greek island—I had forgotten which one. She laughed at faces I pulled after eating bits of mushroom from her picnic basket. I could still feel the burning on my tongue from trying just that tiny little piece of red-coded mushroom. I could smell the hot-stone scent of her skin, hear her deep-voiced laughter. Feel her heat on my naked skin.
Inaru.
Had she been serious? Had she thought I was more than a game? Had she thought because I wouldn’t pay, I didn’t love her?
What did it matter? It was too late. She had gone to honour her contract. By now, she would have her money and the man would have his children, and I had no doubt that, being from the Palayi clan like Nicha, she would occupy a plum position somewhere on Asto.
And in six months’ time, I would marry Eva.
Thayu said, “I came about something else. You asked me to find out about the person who owns the apartment?”
I shook my thoughts free of times I would do better to forget. “You found something?”
“Come and have a look.”
I followed Thayu inside. It was a lot cooler inside the building, and cool air stroked my sweaty skin.
But when I sat down, I made the mistake of putting my left palm on the seat. Something snapped under the bandage and white hot pain seared across my hand.
I cried out; black spots danced in my vision. I sat there, breathing deeply.
A hand came into my field of vision. “Let me have a look.”
Trembling, I extended my hands.
Somewhere on the instrument panel, she flicked on a small light that showed a wet patch of yellow ooze seeping into the bandage.
Thayu gave me a sharp look. “Why haven’t you seen a medico yet?”
All of a sudden, fatigue and pain overwhelmed me. I leaned back in the bench. My head spun, and when Thayu reached past me to a control, the heat radiating from her body made me shiver.
“I’ll arrange it right now.” Thayu slid an earpiece over her ear.
I sat there, fighting dizziness.
A little while later, she said, “That’s arranged. Are you all right to continue?”
I desperately wanted to say no. I wanted a hot mug of manazhu, to crawl into bed and ignore the world around me. But I nodded. “Show me what you found.”
Her hands moved over the panel and dragged a projection forward. “I came across this.”
I squinted at a piece of text. I could just make out that it was in the local keihu language, which I couldn’t read. The translator had made a copy in Coldi next to the original document, and had done its usual job at mangling up the sentences. Something about a meeting. Thayu had highlighted one sentence. It is said that representatives of Amoro Renkati came to the meeting.
And a memory came to me.
Like this, with the two names together, I remembered where I had seen that name before: in the credits of the movie on Seymour Kershaw. The same person who owned this apartment?
“This . . . Amoro Renkati . . . is he a local?”
“I don’t know. I checked the population register, but nothing comes up under that name.”
But this person could be an unregistered local, not a gamra citizen.
A local, who was spying on me, who funded movies that told lies about my predecess
or.
Renkati sounded awfully like Akhtari; I was sure it was an Aghyrian name. The Aghyrian section of Barresh were rich; they were high up in politics, or in business.
Was it really as simple as that? A businessman in Barresh discovers the glamour and money of the movie industry on Earth, supports a movie about a subject that is close to his heart—and vilifies the much-maligned Coldi in the process. Sirkonen tries to stop the release of the movie, and in return the businessman—not understanding the nature of free speech and democracy—thinks his investment is at risk and orders the attack on the president?
A possible motive, but I didn’t think the potential loss of income was serious enough for murder, not by any gamra entity’s understanding. But it was a start.
And I had an idea. A stupid and risky idea maybe, but one that might answer some questions.
“Right,” I said, “let’s see if we can find someone to give me paid work.”
If Thayu was surprised at the sudden change of topic, she didn’t show. “What do you want me to do?”
“If you could take down what I tell you.” I cringed, holding up my useless hands. I hated being dependent, but could only get the auto-type feature in Coldi to work through my feeder, and since I didn’t have one . . .
“That’s what I’m for, to help you.” While she clipped on her thought-sensor, her eyes met mine in an intense, almost accusing stare, but she said nothing and calmly took down the text. The lines of curly Coldi script grew in the projection.
Finally, she read it out. “My name is Cory Wilson, delegate of gamra. Unforeseen circumstances in my home entity have necessitated that I seek temporary alternative funding. I have completed training in gamra law and am familiar with Trader law. Besides Coldi, I am fluent in Standard, the language of my home entity, and proficient in Damarcian, Kedrasi and Indrahui. I am willing to take projects as translator or negotiator. It is my hope that your organisation can help me.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
“It’s very . . . unusual.”
“Anything wrong with it?”
