Tsecha trudged forward, taking care to keep his eyes focused on Dathim’s back so he would not see something he should not. He had never lived in such a house, where rooms and screened barriers served the same function as entire wings did in the embassy. He had no wish to look into Dathim’s kitchen. It pained him to think what he might find there.
After only a few steps, he found himself a reluctant occupant of the laving room doorway. He allowed himself a small relief as he bore witness only to cloth-covered flooring, expanses of stripped wall, and stacks of colored tile.
Then he looked at the wall behind the small sink, and stared.
The sand dunes rolled across the space as they did in his memories of home. The colors warmed him by their very presence—the pale gold of the sand, the red-brown of the shadowed troughs between the dunes, the ivory of the peaks where the relentless sun drove all color away. All manner of tile shape, from square to circle to splinter, combined to form the scene, resolving into a whole as he drew away, then fracturing into discrete scenes as he drew close. Here, a scatter of stones. There, the curve of a bird in flight.
“I will replace the glaring white of the walls with this.” Dathim picked up a square of lightest sand and held it out for inspection. “And I will edge near the ceiling and the floor with the red-brown of the shadows.”
As when he first saw the cava shell in the embassy, Tsecha found himself groping for words to describe the beauty of the scene. “You do not reuse the tile you broke?” he finally asked, because he did not want Dathim to know how the magnificence of his work affected him.
Dathim shook his head. “That tile was inferior. It would not take a break well—it shattered into irregular pieces. And the color was too stark. I could not make it blend with the rest. And to blend is a good thing, is it not, nìRau?”
Tsecha picked up one of the sand squares and turned it over. “There is no purity mark.” He pointed to the blank surface. “No cursive signatory of the maker. This tile is not of idomeni.”
“No, nìRau. It is humanish. I purchase it in this city.”
“How ungodly.” Tsecha spoke as to himself. “You go into the city often?”
“Yes, nìRau. After I finish my work at the embassy. I do work for others here”—he gestured in the direction of the other houses—“repairs and alterations.”
Tsecha set down the tile, his gaze drifting again to the desert scene. “It is a creation of great beauty, and truly. One who conceives such deserves the blessing of the gods.”
“To serve well is its own blessing, nìRau.” Dathim picked up an abrading cloth and wiped it across an area of the wall still rough with old grout. “I serve this task as I do my others. Every morning, before the sunrise, I join my skein-sharers in the common room behind the central utilities array.” White powder spilled at his feet, greying his trousers and coating his black boots. “It is a good place. Quiet. Not a place where born-sects deign to gather, but I am still grateful for the small shelf where I store my tools and the section of bench where I can sit.”
Damn you, Haárin! Tsecha grappled with the urge to kick at the stacks of tile and send them clattering across the room. How Dathim could beckon and repel with the same words. Offer, and then take back. But offer what? He did not understand. It is the way Dathim speaks. Yes, that was the reason for his confusion, and truly. “How did you learn your English, ní Dathim?”
“I learn by listening, nìRau.” Dathim continued to abrade the wall as he turned and looked Tsecha in the face. “I am a most accomplished listener, and truly.” The words hung in the air, then filtered down as the dust. “You call your Kièrshia ‘nìaRauta Haárin.’”
Tsecha sighed. “Yes.”
“It is said that she is hybridizing, changing into a not-quite-idomeni, not-quite-humanish.” The soft rasp of the cloth filled the tiny room. The stone smelled of the powder. “You have said you believe we will all be as she is, that the worlds will command us to change, that our bodies will listen to the order of the worlds, and all will be the same.”
Tsecha thought of his Jani. Their discussion in the garden. The way she moved and the strangeness of her eyes. “The commands have sounded in some colonies. They take different forms. In some worlds, a sickness in the bones, in others, an ache in the soul or an inability to eat blessed foods. But our physician-priests deny the will of the gods. They name it ‘environmentally induced chimerization.’ They attack it as illness and drive it away.”
“Environmentally induced chimerization,” Dathim repeated. “The annihilation of that which is.” He removed the ax-hammer from his belt. “So often have I seen you walk this place, as fast as if demons chased you, pondering your ‘that which is.’” He tapped the pointed hammer end sharply against a remaining expanse of white tile. “The Elyan Haárin will no longer be allowed to do business with humanish. So says my facilities dominant.” The tile cracked like thin ice—Dathim pried it from the wall with the edge of the ax-blade, and the pieces tumbled to the canvas. “But that is not what you would have, is it, nìRau? You wish that this business continue. You would even allow it to grow, would you not? You would allow us to trade freely with humanish.”
Tsecha watched Dathim work, and pondered their strange conversation. The Haárin’s unwarranted challenges. The way he changed subjects, which made his words as difficult to follow as Jani’s at her most obscure.
Only three generations as Haárin—I would have thought many more, if this one’s attitude is as that of his forebears—
Tsecha’s memory opened. Dathim’s words served as key. The emotions of disputation. The smell of the dust. The beauty of the sand dunes. Together, they took him back to Rauta Shèràa, and the time when he answered to his born name, and many were the Haárin who came to him.
Memories. They revealed to him how to rework Dathim’s words into the old patterns, the old vows.
I, Dathim Naré, outcast by way of Naré Par, who was outcast by way of Par Tenvin, offer myself in service to you, Avrèl nìRau Nema. I am skilled in tilecraft. I know facilities, and the ways of the embassy. I can go out into the city unimpeded, because such is my purpose and my way.
I know how to speak between lines.
I know your beliefs. I, too, await the annihilation of the old ways. Cèel and Shai are of the old ways, and I owe no loyalty to them.
I know you have walked this way many times. I have seen you. I planned to call out to you, boldly and openly, the next time you walked. And so I did.
I have been waiting for you.
Tsecha felt aspects of himself that he lately set aside, rejoin. Unlike the shards on the floor, never to be mended, his own fragments reshaped, his hope, fear, and anger. His pride. The glue that held them was the awareness that he had not felt for so long. That he was Vynshàrau of Shèràa, and that a Haárin who wished to serve well had offered him his aid. “Yes, ní Dathim, I would allow you to trade freely.”
“As you say, nìRau.” Dathim tapped and pulled. More tile tumbled to the covered floor. “Tomorrow is my first visit to the Exterior Ministry. I must study the room in person, assess the light and the space, and decide which scene will suit Her Excellency best.”
Once more, Tsecha felt the cold of the air and heard the silence of the trees. “Shai agreed to allow you to work in the Ministry?”
“Yes, nìRau. Did she not tell you?” Dathim continued to work, his back to Tsecha, his sheared head silvered in the light. “Most unseemly, that she did not inform you of such. Of course, she did not wish to let me go. But nìaRauta Ulanova can be most persuasive.” More tapping. More pulling. “You would have me deliver any message, nìRau?” The soft thud of shards hitting the cloth floor cover. “You would have me do anything?”
Tsecha again struggled with the inability to think clearly. They have shut me out. He pushed back one sleeve, and ran a finger along his many scars. I should challenge Shai. In Rauta Shèràa, there would be no question that he should offer à lérine. But if he did so here, would s
he accept? Would she even reply? Would Cèel consider such behavior unseemly, and recall them both? No. He will not recall Shai. Jani’s truth struck him as a blow. He will recall me. Not openly, with challenge and argument and directness of idomeni, but quietly, for reasons other, as the humanish did. Cèel and Shai have watched. They have learned. To say one thing and mean another. To use their blades in his back. “I will decide later, ní Dathim.” He took one last look at the rolling dunes. “Glories of the day to you.”
Tsecha left the house to find the stone-paved street no longer empty. Other Haárin now walked, or talked in doorways. As he passed, the elders straightened in respectful greeting. Youngish stared after him more boldly, small hands clutching the overrobe hems of their house-parents. He gestured blessings to all of them, lifted his chin in gratitude at the offered thanks.
When he reached the treeline, he looked back to find Dathim standing in his doorway, ax-hammer in hand, watching him. Tsecha paused to offer a blessing, but before he could, the Haárin turned his back and disappeared into the darkness of his house.
CHAPTER 12
Jani passed the tables of an award-winning holoVee actor, the prima ballerina of the Capital Ballet, and the team captain of Gruppo Helvetica as she followed the maitre’d through Gaetan’s mirrored main dining room. The ballerina, a favorite of Niall’s, wore something wispy in black that was held together by thin silver straps and prayer.
Jani tugged at the snug bodice of her own gown. According to Gaetan’s unwritten code, long dresses were de rigueur for women, which meant that one of John’s gifts would at last see candlelight. At least the silver-green holosilk didn’t pose any sartorial challenge—it was long-sleeved and floor-length all the way around, and lacked any slits or plunges that could have proved embarrassing if she moved like a normal human. Unlike that copper thing. The next time she saw John, she would have to ask him what the hell he’d been thinking when he bought that.
Her mood lifted when she caught sight of two familiar heads visible above the leather bolster of a corner booth. Auburn and carrot, straight and curly. Carrot-curly saw her first.
“Jani!” Angevin Wyle scooted out of her seat and circled around the table, handling her taupe satin with enviable ease. “You won me my bet!”
“Glad to hear it.” Jani bent down to accept a neck-wrenching hug. “What was it?”
“Didn’t think you’d wear a dress.” Steven Forell stood, ever-present nicstick dangling from his lips. His hair and black dinner jacket had absorbed the clove-scented smoke—Jani stifled a film-threatening sneeze as he pulled her close. “You let me down, gel,” he said as he released her. “Ange is gonna ride me ’bout this for a week.”
“Two.” Angevin looked Jani up and down, her pert face alight with approval. “I like it.”
“Posh,” Steve added. “Guess the fancy consulting life agrees with you.”
They returned to the table—Steve grinned as he watched the maitre’d help Jani with her chair and spread the linen napkin across her lap. “World’s not ready for this,” he said after the man left. “You’ve gone all civilized.”
“I’ve done a turn or two through society in my dim and distant past.” Jani tucked her flowing skirts around her legs. “You make me sound barbaric.”
“Nah. Streamlined, more like.” Steve beckoned for the wine steward and waiter, who stood off to the side. “Like it were beneath your notice.” He announced his own surrender to the status quo by extinguishing his ’stick before ordering the wine.
Glasses were filled and orders taken. Jani sipped iced water with lemon and nodded as Steve waxed rhapsodic about the Interior posting from which he and Angevin had just returned.
Angevin, however, refused to cooperate—for every bit of praise Steve tried to heap on his homeworld, she responded with a leveling aside. “I blame selective amnesia,” she said as she extracted a steamed mussel from its shell. “Yes, Guernsey’s pretty—”
“Gorgeous,” Steve muttered.
“—and I got along with his family—”
“They fookin’ adored you.”
“—and yes, on paper, going there was a good career move.” She regarded the sea-born morsel doubtfully before popping it in her mouth. “But nothing gets done out there. It takes weeks to process transactions that can be handled here in days. I thought Interior Main was bad—Helier Annex made them look like a Misty relay station.”
“Colonies are more relaxed, Ange.” Steve tore grilled shrimp from a skewer. “They don’t take life rush-rush.”
“Oh, belt it! You’d chewed your nails down to the second knuckle by the time we pulled out. The project teams we were assigned to missed five deadlines because paperwork we submitted for approvals disappeared down a rat-hole.” Angevin attacked her butter-sauced fingers with a scented dispo. “Two of those were equipment requisitions for construction projects. The crews are sitting around waiting to work and nothing’s been shipped in for them to work with. Those were Steve’s—you can imagine how well those little mix-ups went over with his department head.”
“Thanks for the reminder, love,” Steve grumbled around a piece of green pepper.
“Paperwork probably got through all right. The equipment just got resold to a higher bidder.” Jani stirred her soup. Beef consommé, protein-based and bland, the culinary equivalent of hot water.
“Folks been complainin’ for a while.” Steve’s voice emerged small and slow, like a young boy confessing he’d stolen cookies. “When I send things home, gifts and suchlike, I use an Haárin courier service that has its own docks and staff.” He frowned. “Except they’re getting squeezed by the crooks.”
Jani shivered and rubbed her upper arms. Either the dining room was set to “freeze” or her own thermostat misbehaved again. “Did your folks mention when the squeeze started?”
“Life’s always been a free-for-all in Helier, but me folks said things started getting really bad early this year.” Steve chewed on the deshrimped skewer. Like Niall, he needed something in his mouth when the going got bumpy.
About the time L’araignée formed. Jani stirred her soup. “Helier government doing anything?”
Steve snorted. “Yeah. Sitting about with their fingers up their bums.”
“Wait a second.” Angevin looked at him. “You knew about this, and you didn’t bother to tell me what we’d be in for?”
Jani pushed her still-full soupbowl away. “When he left Helier, the problem hadn’t grown to the extent that it affected the Cabinet annexes. No one ever dared tamper with them before. Times have changed.”
“Tell me.” Steve took the wooden skewer from his mouth and snapped it in half. “Lost a friend while we were there. Barry went to Oxbridge Combined, same as me. We both started at Interior right off—he left after the van Reuter dustup. Nabbed a job with Commerce, doing dock audits out of the Helier Annex.” He fell silent—it seemed to take a lot for him to start talking again. “He called me one morning. He were auditing one of the bigger receiving companies. Whole box of scanpack chips gone missing. He thought he’d found an erase and reentry in the incoming log—he asked me questions about loading and unloading procedures ’cause I worked my way through Oxbridge on the docks.” He frowned at the broken sticks in his hand, and tossed them on the table. “Security found his body that afternoon. He’d been stuffed in a supply closet, covered with a drop cloth.”
Jani felt a twist of nausea at the thought of her parents. Of Niall. “Was it a professional killing?”
“Might’ve been.” Steve tapped the back of his neck. “Snapped. Could’ve been a pro or just someone strong. Last I heard, ComPol were still investigating. Doubt they’ll find anyone. It’s been six months and they’ve come up with nothing.”
The three of them sat in moody silence as the waiters removed, replaced, and refilled.
“Jan?” Steve’s voice, gone soft again. “What’s going on?”
“Later.” Jani forced herself to eat. “At my flat.”
&
nbsp; “The concept of furniture!” Angevin had consumed most of the wine Steve had ordered. The alcohol lifted her mood and liberated her sense of drama—she strutted the center of Jani’s main room, gesturing broadly. “Chairs! Couches!”
“Streamlined.” Steve nodded his approval. “I, for one, am not surprised.”
“I’m appalled.” Angevin walked to one of the windows. “Views could be better, but parties are still a possibility.”
Jani strolled to her side and looked out at the rainbow-lit park beyond. “I don’t have time to throw parties.”
“Don’t think you should, with all this crap you got goin’.” Steve picked through one of the piles on her desk. “Guess business is poppin’.” He looked at her, eyes sharp with question.
Jani stepped away from the window and walked a tight circle. “How much have you heard?” She glanced at Angevin in time to see the guilty flinch.
“Trash report floatin’ round with your name on it. Stolen equipment. Altered paperwork.” Steve plucked a half-smoked ’stick from his jacket pocket and chewed it. “Bitty stuff, Jan—that’s what we’re hearin’. Earn you a slap on the hand from your ol’ schoolie Aryton at the Reg, maybe.” He tossed the old stick in the ’zap and ignited a fresh one. “Anything else goin’ on that we should know about?” He walked back around the desk and perched on the corner. “Safety in numbers, an’ all that.”
“There are…problems with the idomeni.”
“Oh, that’s news. What else?”
“It’s better if I don’t say.”
“Don’t you trust us?”
“It’s safer for you if I don’t say. In fact, it would be in your best interest to leave here now.”
Law of Survival Page 15
