Law of Survival

by Kristine Smith

  Jani tried to smile, then shook her head. “No. But I doubt if I ever will be.” She walked to the desk and gathered up her duffel. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 32

  The ride down to the lobby proceeded without incident, if only because they didn’t encounter anyone. The traverse of the lobby itself drew no notice until Hodge negotiated an intercept route from the front desk, meeting them just before they reached the entry.

  “Mistress Kilian, I’m so glad to find—” Trained in the art of ignoring Family foibles, he cropped his start before it turned into a stare and barely missed a beat. “—that you are all right.” He took a step closer, and dropped his voice. “I’m so sorry about that young lady. So lucky that you found her before that awful young man—” His lips pressed in a thin white line as he dealt with yet another blow to his gentle neighborhood. “Well. As I said. So glad. Mistress. Sir.” He nodded, then returned to the refuge of his desk.

  “Mistress? What year is this, anyway?” Niall waved off the doorman who stood beside the skimmer they had arrived in. At the same time, another sedan, a dark green four-door, lumbered curbside. The gullwing popped up and Lieutenant Pullman emerged, wearing dress blue-greys and an anxious smile.

  “Check that one over”—Niall pointed to the dark blue two-door—“then rotate it out.”

  “Sir.” Pullman saluted, then turned to Jani. “Ma’am, I hope”—his eyes widened, but he clamped down as quickly as Hodge—“hope that you and your folks are OK.”

  “Yes, we are.” Jani lifted her chin and smiled broadly. The idea of an idomeni teeth-baring crossed her mind, but she liked Pull. Better to save that surprise for someone she didn’t. “Thanks.”

  “My job. Ma’am.” Pullman led her around to the passenger side and closed her in.

  “A different skimmer for every trip?” Jani watched Pullman recede in her side mirror. “What did you do, requisition the entire Sheridan vehicle pool?”

  Niall shrugged. “Just standard precautions.”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Frankly? No.” He expression sombered. “The courtly Mr. Hodge isn’t the only one disgusted by the actions of his fellow man.”

  “He seemed to have a good idea of what happened. What are they saying? I checked the Trib-Times from cover to cover. Couldn’t find a thing.”

  “I hit the garage just as the clean-up was winding down. Family security everywhere, tidying up for the ComPol. The official story is that you stumbled upon Lescaux attacking Roni, and were injured trying to intervene. Lescaux fell to his death trying to get away.” Niall steered onto the Boul access road that skirted the idomeni property. “I’m guessing that’s close enough to what actually happened to pass ComPol muster?”

  “I haven’t talked to them yet. With Joaquin Loiaza around, I may never.”

  “I met him once, you know. He was van Reuter’s attorney. Sold him out but good.”

  “Niall, that doesn’t make me feel better.”

  “Oh, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re the sort of client he likes—on your way up the food chain.” Niall slowed through the first unstaffed idomeni checkpoint. “So, feel any different?”

  Jani’s stomach clenched as they passed beneath the silvery arch. “Except for assorted hospital stays, this is the longest I’ve ever gone without filming since Rauta Shèràa.” She widened her eyes, closed them, then opened them. “I got used to them always feeling a little tight, and now that feeling’s gone.” She looked out her window and watched the landscape drift past. Blue-tinged grasses. Stunted yellow and green-leafed shrubs. “It’s strange.”

  Niall slowed the skimmer. “If you want to go back—”

  “No.” Jani held an image in her mind now, of a shorn head and a look of quiet acceptance. It occurred to me that when the gods informed me of the future, they did not also guarantee my presence in it. “I owe someone this.”

  “What?” Niall looked alarmed. “Are you sure you don’t—”

  “I’m sure.” Jani watched the first of the staffed checkpoints appeared in the distance. “I’m sure.”

  Vehicles filled the stone-paved courtyard. Jani recognized Callum Burkett’s steel blue triple-length, along with the color-coded entries belonging to the various Ministries: green for Commerce, gold for Treasury, black for Interior. She recognized Anais Ulanova’s triple-length, as well, its burgundy color damped by a spray-on filter to the color of coffee beans.

  Niall steered them to an opening beside Burkett’s vehicle, lowered the power to standby, and waited. “You’ve gone quiet,” he said after a time.

  Jani leaned back her head so she could check her eyes in the side mirror. “Be honest—what do I look like?”

  Niall fingered the steering wheel. His mien altered from professional vigilance to the sort of introspection he saved for his off-hours. “I met a lady in the meads, full beautiful, a faery’s child. Her hair was long, her foot was light, and her eyes were wild.” He smiled softly. “Keats. La belle dame sans merci.”

  “The beautiful woman without mercy.” Kind of Niall to say. Not that Jani believed it. She tugged at one of her curls. “Not long. Rather short, in fact.”

  “Ah, well. So much for that.” Niall popped his gullwing and exited the skimmer.

  “So my eyes look wild, huh?” Jani asked as she followed suit. “That should go over big.” She hoisted her duffel to her right shoulder and watched the faces that turned toward her, bracing for the reactions. The courtyard air was still and cool. She shivered, and blamed the temperature.

  “Kilian!” Callum Burkett broke away from a Minister-cluster and crossed the courtyard toward her. Dressed in desertweights, his expression grim, he resembled Derringer enough to have fathered him. “We should talk before this thing sta—” He froze in mid-stride, his front foot in the air, looking as though he’d caught himself before he stepped in something embarrassing. Then the foot lowered. So did his voice. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “Not by any means, General.” Jani felt the heat flood her cheeks. “This is what I really look like.” She glanced past him in time to see more heads turn in their direction.

  Burkett directed his stone-grey glare at Niall. “Did you know about this, Colonel?”

  “Do you mean, sir, have I noticed that Ms. Kilian’s eyes look different?” Niall regarded Jani with a look of studious examination, the duck-and-dodge in full force. “Yes, sir. Rather striking, I think—”

  “I mean, did you help plan—”

  “No! He did not. He did, in fact, ask me several times if I wished to reconsider.” Jani wedged herself between Niall and an Article 13. “My eyes. My call. I have my reasons, which will reveal themselves presently.”

  Burkett’s face reddened. His arms hung at his sides, hands slowly clenching.

  Oh, Cal, you hate surprises, I know, and you’ve had a couple of zingers over the past few days, haven’t you? Jani made a show of scanning the crowd. “Where’s Eugene? I don’t see him.”

  Burkett’s eyes narrowed. “He’s…been reassigned.”

  Jani nodded. “Thank you for the security.”

  “You’re…welcome. I trust you’re…all right?”

  “Yes. Thanks. You’re going to take care of my bioemotional restriction, aren’t you?”

  A pause. “Yes.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I hope so.” Burkett dropped his gaze, then tensed. “That’s a soulcloth.”

  Jani followed the angle of his stare and pulled down the red braid, which had been half-hidden by her tunic cuff. “Yes.”

  Burkett started to speak. Stopped. He looked at Jani, his expression altered to hangdog uncertainty. “Well.” He nodded to her, then turned on his heel and clipped toward a concerned-looking major who had emerged from one of the groups.

  “Poor Cal. Every time he thinks he’s got you sussed, you throw him another curve.” Niall veered close. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

 
; Jani nodded. “The idomeni have an idea what I look like. So do most of the people I work with. It’s…time.”

  “Well, I’ll be out here with the rest of the chauffeurs if you need me.” Niall tried to look encouraging, but he could only manage tense. He scanned the assorted faces one last time, then moved off to the far side of the yard.

  Jani caught sight of the brown-clad diplomatic suborn emerging through the beaten bronze door, and made her way to the center of the courtyard to take her place in the rank line. As she walked, she grew conscious of an invisible barrier growing around her, formed from unease and the pressure of scrutiny. She would have expected it even if she hadn’t chosen to reveal herself—word of Lescaux’s death had had almost a day to percolate through the Ministries; the true story that the Family security officers had pieced together had no doubt whipped around, as well.

  She heard a few gasps, followed by low muttering, as she took her place. Some stared openly, others, furtively. Look at it this way—it could be worse. For example, she’d yet to negotiate a Chicago city street.

  Jani realized that the voices behind her had receded to nothing. She turned, and found herself looking into Anais Ulanova’s red-rimmed eyes.

  The woman wore black. No jewelry. She seemed oblivious to the change in Jani’s appearance—the emotion in her pained brown stare originated in a deep place, slicing past the physical into Jani’s own inner dwelling. For an uncounted time, no one moved. No one breathed.

  Then the suborn broke the silence with her call. “Time!” People hurried to their places in line, jostling and muttering.

  Jani turned to face front as the bronze doors swung wide, conscious with every forward step she took of the danger bearing down from behind.

  They trooped the halls in single-file, like prep schoolers returning from recess. Jani looked down each bare-walled hallway they passed, through each open door, on the watch for the faces from the night before. Beyva’s. Dathim’s.

  Nema’s.

  Her anxiety ramped as they entered the meeting room. Under normal conditions, Nema would have met the delegations by now, moving down the line shaking hands and commenting loudly about the weather.

  But conditions aren’t normal, are they? Jani wended through the banked rows toward her usual place behind Burkett, then remained standing as those of higher rank filed in.

  Burkett fractured a few minor rules of protocol by dodging around assorted deputies to reach his seat ahead of them. His eyes still had that slitted look, which meant a headache had settled in for the duration. A thin film of sweat coated his brow, as well.

  Jani touched her own forehead. Still dry. She felt quite comfortable now that she thought about it, which meant that the Vynshàrau had cranked up the temperature to the upper limit of humanish comfort.

  “Someday we’re going to have one of these get-togethers in my neck of the woods and so help me God, it will be payback time.” Burkett tugged at his trousers as he sat.

  Jani took her seat. This allowed her an unrestricted view of the back of Burkett’s tan shirt, through which the first faint splotches of sweat had bloomed. “Lieutenant Ischi once suggested the Arctic test facility.”

  Burkett’s stiff posture unwound ever so slightly. “The ATF?” A ghost of a smile had crossed his face by the time he turned to face front.

  Most of the humanish had settled into their seats when the doors opened again and the lower-ranked born-sect idomeni filed in. Clothed in shades of sand and dun, hair bound in napeknots or arranged in fringed braids, earrings flashing in the chandelier light. Documents and communications suborns, charged with recording the minutes. Shai’s clerks and researchers. Dominants from various departments. Religious Suborn Sànalàn, looking worn and subdued.

  Then came a blue-clothed figure, like a fault in a pale stone. The lowest-ranking of the Elyan Haárin. Female, her waist-length light brown hair bound in a single braid. Then came a male, clad in orange and yellow, brown hair sheared so closely that the room light flashed off golden patches of exposed scalp. They seated themselves on the highseats at the far end of the V-shaped table and busied themselves pulling documents from the briefbags they wore slung across their shoulders.

  Another shear-headed male followed. He wore black trousers and shirt, topped with a leopard-print jacket cut like a humanish male’s daysuit coat. Around his neck, he had knotted a long strip of orange cloth that was without question the Elyan Haárin version of a humanish neckpiece. He carried his briefbag using a handstrap. Jani harbored the sense that he didn’t want to rumple his jacket.

  Burkett twisted around in his seat. “Did you know about this?”

  Jani shook her head. “It doesn’t surprise me, though.”

  “That makes one of us.” He pressed his fingers to his temple as he turned back to the entry procession.

  Two more Haárin had entered—a male and a female. The male wore more traditional garb, a pale green shirt and trousers topped with an overrobe the color of dried grass. He wore his brown hair in an odd hybrid style, a humanish pageboy that he had braided into a skull-defining cap. The female, the group’s dominant, leaned toward a taut humanish look—grey tunic and trousers, her grey-streaked brown hair bound in a loose horsetail. She and the male took their seats on the same arm of the V, and leafed through files that had been laid out for them by their three suborns.

  The room’s atmosphere had altered with the successive appearance of each Haárin. Jani likened it to walking out on a sheet of ice and feeling that subtle shift beneath one’s feet, hearing the faintest of squeals as the first cracks formed and radiated, then tensing for whatever came next.

  After the Haárin dominant seated herself, the first wave of Vynshàrau diplomats entered. Speaker to Colonies Daès and his suborn, followed by Suborn Oligarch Shai’s suborn, and finally, Shai herself. With them came the return to sartorial sanity, born-sect-style, sands and off-whites and hair arranged in fringed braids.

  Anais Ulanova then entered, partnered with a young woman who had the look of the hurriedly briefed about her. Prime Minister Li Cao’s chief aide, followed by the PM herself. Arrangements at table, murmured greetings in High Vynshàrau and English, the scrape of seats. Only one seat remained empty at the table now, the lowest seat at the head of the V.

  Jani looked to the door, and prayed. To Ganesha. To whichever god cared to listen. She wondered if she could dash to the door before Burkett could stop her, mount a search through the winding halls of the embassy until she found whom she sought. Until she made sure Nema still lived.

  Then Sànalàn rose, crossed her right arm over her chest until she grasped her shoulder, and spoke, flowing syllables uttered in a high keen. The official opening of the conclave, a prayer to Shiou to instill order, that had once been Nema’s duty to perform.

  Jani watched the figures seated at the table. All sat with their heads high, their eyes closed, the standard idomeni position of invocation. Not a word had they said about Nema’s absence. How humanish of them. Yet somehow, the determined ignorance of the situation imbued the empty chair at the head of the table with a strange power, like the gap in a demiskimmer formation left to commemorate a missing pilot.

  Anais broke this particular formation only once, looking out toward the crowd until she saw Jani. The cold light of triumph shimmered in her eyes as she turned back to the table.

  It took some time for the sound to cut through Sànalàn’s pitched voice. By the time Jani heard it, she had the impression it had gone on for some time. The muffled sounds of argument, audible through the panel. Faces turned toward the door.

  Then the panel flew aside and Nema swept in, a guard at his heels. Jani didn’t recognize him at first—his sheared head looked even more startling in the bright light of the room. He wore his off-white shirt and trousers, his red-cuffed overrobe and rings. His earrings glittered in garish array, fully exposed as they now were to the light. He looked traditional in every way, but for the hair.

  He scanned the rows
of banked seats. Jani knew he searched for her—she raised a hand to gain his attention.

  “Nìa.” Nema’s face seemed to split as he bared his teeth. “You are most well, in spite of your battle!”

  “Inshah.” Jani was dimly aware of Burkett leaning forward to cradle his head in his hands. “Yes, I am well.”

  “I had heard you had been shot.”

  “Grazed, inshah.” Jani felt the tension suffuse the air around her. She watched Ulanova at the table, her face averted, her back straight.

  “Grazed.” Nema seemed to ponder the word. “My Anais’s Lescaux tried to kill you.”

  “Tsecha.” Shai’s shoulders rounded in threat. “You have been removed from these proceedings. You have received warnings to not interfere. You have disobeyed.”

  “You removed Égri nìRau Tsecha from the proceedings, Shai. The ambassador of the Shèrá worldskein. I am not here as such.” He ignored the guard who stood at his shoulder, which seemed a safe thing to do—her reluctance to lay hands upon her Chief Propitiator was evident in her posture. Instead, he directed his attention toward the Elyan Haárin dominant. “I come here as Tsecha Égri, dominant of the Earth Haárin, sect-sharer with the Elyan Haárin. It is they I ask for the privilege to sit at this table. It is their right to extend or deny.”

  The Elyan Haárin dominant looked at her suborn, who responded with a truncated hand flip that Jani couldn’t interpret. Then they leaned close to one another and took turns speaking in each other’s ears, a profoundly humanish conduct that caused Shai to round her shoulders even more and set the human half of the room abuzz.

  “Ná Feyó?” Shai barked after the conversation had gone on for some time. “Do you agree to ní Tsecha’s request?” Her tone implied that any agreement would be looked on with disfavor. Murmurs filled the air again when the assembled realized that she had called Tsecha by his true Haárin title, not the dressed-up “Rau” version.

  Feyó lifted her head. “I do with gratitude, and truly, nìaRauta.” Her English rang mellow and slightly drawled. She reminded Jani of Dolly Aryton at her most formal, and like the Hands of Might, she radiated calm. “He should sit next to me.” She indicated the space between her and her suborn.