Code of Conduct

by Kristine Smith

  …that the matter we discussed earlier today has, unfortunately, not been resolved. After further inquiry, it has been determined that my initial conclusions were in error.

  “She fooled you, Anais.” Tsecha walked slowly to his favored chair and sat carefully to prevent the angled frame from poking him. “But she fooled all you humanish. Until that last evening at Knevçet Shèràa, your kind thought you knew Captain Kilian most well.”

  This avenue of exploration, regrettably, appears closed at this time. Rest assured, nìRau, and truly, that I will keep you apprised of any new developments. a lète ona vèste, Nemarau. Anais Ulanova.

  Glories of the day to you, Nema. Tsecha reread the letter once, then again, his gaze drawn repeatedly to the final line, the curves and slashes of his born language. Quite adequate High Vynshàrau—the proper accents, the appropriate phrasing for his skein and standing. He could find no fault with it. Some Exterior suborn must have labored most diligently to produce the deceivingly simple phrase. And yet…

  You did not know me in the time before, Anais. You have no right to call me by my born name. He would answer to few idomeni who referred to him as Nema. Not even from his less-favored chosen humans, Tsai and Senna, Aryton and Nawar, would he tolerate such.

  My born name is for the very few. Esteemed enemies, some. Most favored, others. Hansen Wyle, if he had lived, would know him only as Nema. And my toxin. His excellent Captain, whom Ulanova had apparently misplaced.

  Tsecha settled back against his unforgiving cushions and set the Exterior Minister’s letter on the chairside table. Such careful wording, on unofficial paper. She would not seem so tall now, I think. Ulanova had stumbled, and badly.

  Yet that morning, she had been so sure.

  Humanish like my Anais do not state themselves strongly without reason. So between the morning and the afternoon, she had been thwarted, but how? To whom may I speak of this?

  Tsecha looked across his room. His newly acquired comport, a bulky hybrid hastily adapted by his dominant Communications suborn to function within Commonwealth systems, rested on his inscribing table.

  His newly acquired, unmonitored, comport.

  He had had a most difficult time convincing his Security of his need for such. But he had, in the end, persuaded. He had, after all, once convinced a mixed-sect mob that, whatever they may truly have wished, dismembering him with long blades and adding him to the soul circle burning around Rauta Shèràa was not part of it. Thus had he sidestepped death. And if so death, why not Embassy Security?

  Tsecha approached his comport as though it were a piece of engine wreckage which could explode. He had not yet used it, and the instruction provided by the Communications suborn had lacked detail. He touched the activation pad, feeling a tingle of accomplishment as the display shimmered.

  He released the touchlock of one of the drawers and withdrew a folded sheet of parchment. True idomeni paper, smooth as metalcloth, its color the soft pink of the inside of a cavashell. Tsecha unfolded it, laid it on the desktop, and watched the creases lessen, straighten, then disappear completely until only the handwritten series of humanish numbers and letters marred its surface.

  The code had been carefully acquired, requested with many others so that Tsecha’s agents would not suspect its worth. He tapped it into the comport touchpad, then pulled his favored chair tableside as a series of low, ringing tones told him the connection had been made.

  Moments later, rainbow light splayed across the display, assembling to form a most familiar face. “Glories of the day to you, Physician DeVries,” Tsecha said.

  Watery dark eyes, downturned at the corners, squinted, then widened. “Nema!” The sagged face, too much pale skin on too little bone, quivered. “How in hell did you get this number?”

  “I bought it, DeVries.”

  “From whom?”

  “As you said to me once, long ago, ah, sir, that would be telling.”

  “Son of a—” Eamon DeVries’s jaw clamped, cutting off the balance of the insult. Something of my lineage, Tsecha thought, of that I am most sure. Although the most unseemly of the three doctors who had founded Neoclona, the man had always been, in a fashion almost as idomeni, comfortably predictable.

  He bared his teeth, but not very much. “I could only obtain your satellite office code, unfortunately, Physician DeVries. Physician Parini’s, I could not—”

  “He’s out of town.”

  “—nor could I Physician Shroud’s. Most unfortunate, in that case, because he is the one to whom I must speak.”

  DeVries sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “I would rather,” he said slowly, “be strung up by my nuts over a bonfire than tell John you want to talk to him.”

  “Find him, Eamon. Tell him.”

  “I can’t disturb him.” Flaps of skin shook back and forth. “He’s in the lab.”

  “In the lab!” Tsecha folded his arms as DeVries had. “Still? After so much time? Is it true what is said, that he sleeps within, eats within, never leaves?”

  “He works, Nema. You remember how he works.”

  “And I remember as well what he works on. Who does he hide in his basement now?” Tsecha revealed his teeth more as DeVries’s face ceased its movement. “Physician DeVries, if you possess any sense, you will tell John Shroud I wish to speak to him.”

  DeVries muttered of “ruined days” and “hell to pay,” and disappeared.

  Tsecha stared at the blank display. Perhaps I pushed too greatly? And now Eamon DeVries would alter his code. He resigned himself to planning yet another subterfuge. Fortunately, his Security could probably find DeVries’s new code as they had this one. From a humanish female who sold. Hansen had been the first to discover that with Physician DeVries, there could always be found a female who sold.

  The display flickered again. Tsecha stiffened as the face formed. Just as familiar, this face, but some humanish compelled more attention than others. He nodded toward the display. “John.”

  Eyes, pale blue as ice, glinted. “My God, it really is you. I thought Eamon had been dipping into the drug bins again.” Long-fingered hands combed through lazored hair which shone as a young one’s. White hands. White hair. Rimed eyes the only color in a white face. A body wrapped in death-glaze.

  John Shroud is an…albino. Yes, that was the word, and truly. Tsecha forced himself to look the man in the face. Still so sharp the bones, like Vynshàrau, skin taut as paint over muscle and bone. “Yes, John, it really is me.”

  John bared his teeth. They glistened even more than his hair. “It figures you’d get hold of Eamon’s code. The idiot scribbles it on everything short of restroom walls.” And the voice. A back-of-the-cave voice, Hansen had called it, the word from the bottom of the well. When an idomeni possessed such a voice, it was said to come from the center of the soul, but whether one could say such in John’s case, Tsecha did not know. Allowing the man possession of a soul seemed, as again Hansen would have said, a stretch.

  “Well, points to you, Nema.” John tilted his head well to his left, until he looked at Tsecha sideways. Unseemly familiarity in that, but such was his way. “Imagine seeing you again after all these years. Such a pleasure, I can’t begin to say. I have to get back to work now. See you in the newssheets.” He drew up straight. A hand flicked toward a touchpad, to end the connection.

  “John!” Tsecha gripped the sides of his display as though doing such could trap the man within. “If I wanted to find her, how could I?”

  John’s hand stilled. Pale eyes stared. Such a color. So cold. And artificial, the result of filming. His born eyes were pink. Lab rat, they called him, in youth. That knowledge always seemed to give Hansen such pleasure.

  The bone white hand lowered. “Who are you talking about, Nema?”

  “Her, John. Her. I believe she is alive.”

  John’s face deadened even more. “You believe? You don’t know?”

  “That is why I ask you. Her paper is yours. Her history. How would
you search for her? How would you confirm she lives?”

  John sat back, hands to his mouth, fingertips pressed together. The movement allowed Tsecha a glimpse of the short-sleeved, collarless white shirt he wore. The trousers, Tsecha knew, would be white as well. Medwhites, humanish called them. John’s favored clothing. During his time in Rauta Shèràa, he seldom wore anything else.

  “Assuming I care,” John said, “why should I tell you?”

  Oh, you care, John. “Ulanova wants her…arrested, I believe is the word.” Tsecha released his display, sat back, paused. Periods of silence seemed as important in humanish speech as in some idomeni. We like to let things sink in, Hansen had taught him. “She believes it is the wish of the idomeni for that arrest, as well. But I possess no such wish.”

  “Are you sure your people feel the same, Nema? I seem to recall a few riots concerning that very wish. Demands for your own arrest. Oh, for the good old days.” John struggled to bare his teeth but failed. “Why does Anais want to arrest her?”

  “The Exterior Minister requires her as a tool only, I believe. To destroy Evan van Reuter.”

  John’s barely visible eyebrows arched. “Evan? Is that secession issue heating up again? I remember Anais thinking her van Reuter problems would end when Acton died. Guess not.” Bony fingers tapped against cheekbone. Tsecha almost expected to hear the click. “Unless the rumors about old Ev being responsible for Lyssa’s death are true. But even then, would Anais care? She and Lyssa despised one another because of that scandal over Lyssa’s father.” He frowned. “Unfortunately, Val’s my muck and sludge specialist, and he’s unavailable.”

  Tsecha bared his teeth with enthusiasm. “Please allow my glories of the day to the most excellent Physician Parini when he returns from his vacation.”

  John’s frown grew. “You always liked him, didn’t you?”

  “I found him always most seemly, yes.”

  “But you hate him as well?”

  “Yes to that also, John. As a most esteemed enemy, how else could he be regarded by me?”

  “Hmm.” John worked his hands together as though he held something he wished to mold. “Sh-she…always tried to explain that to me. I didn’t understand then, and it still makes no sense.”

  Tsecha eased against his lumpy cushions. “But you never possessed the wish to learn of idomeni. You only possessed the wish to take from idomeni. Most disordered, John. Balance must always be maintained.”

  “So says the priest.” John’s face turned most as a wall. His hands ceased movement. “You’re no stranger to taking, Nema. If you’d been allowed your way, if that bloody war and your bloody Temple hadn’t stopped you, how much would you have taken from them? From Wyle? From—especially from—” His jaw continued to work, but no sound emerged.

  Tsecha looked into John Shroud’s ungodly eyes. “I do not take, John. I possess no wish to possess. I only allow what must become to become. As a propitiator, I can do nothing else.”

  “The future as you see it? A race of human-idomeni hybrids with you as its spiritual leader?” John laughed quietly. “Hundreds of years ago, a human who said things like that would have been burned at the stake. Your people had the right idea, Nema. Maybe we are more alike than we realize.”

  Tsecha sat heavy in his chair. “Why must I always explain as to young ones? We must merge together. In the end, all will be as one. All the same. So it must be, John, for the journey to the Star to be complete.”

  “Your journey! To your Star! We don’t believe in your Star!”

  “But yet you began the journey yourself, John. The first span in the bridge was built by you. You are as responsible as I for what she will become. What we will all become.” Tsecha’s heart pounded hard and slow in his chest. Not since he had worked to persuade the Council to name him ambassador had he felt so alive. “I always felt you reasoned as a physician, of course, in your experimentation. You wished to heal her, to improve her. Hansen believed, though, something most different. ‘He just wants another freak to keep him company,’ is what he said.”

  Shroud’s hands drew apart slowly as he sat forward in his chair. “Hansen Wyle,” he said through his teeth, “was as crazy as you are.”

  “My Hansen was most sane, as I am. We tried so to find her, but you hid her well. And now, you who hid her should know how to find her. How would I know her? For her good, for yours, for us all, do you not think I should find her first?” Tsecha inscribed shapes in the air to ward off demons. He could not be as humanish, now. “My Captain. My suborn. She who will follow me. Your Jani. How will I know her?”

  John stared at him. Even his hate could not warm his eyes. “She’s dead.” His hand flashed white motion, and his face fragmented.

  Before the man’s image faded completely, Tsecha reentered the code. Several times. But after each attempt, the display only flickered as the comport audio emitted a series of low beeps. So quickly you work to thwart me, John. He berated himself for revealing his soul so to the humanish, but it could not be helped. They merely spoke of what was already well-known—why did saying truth aloud matter so to humanish?

  If they do not speak of it, it does not exist. If they do not think of it, it goes away. Illuminating thoughts, perhaps. Explanations of humanish behavior. But not logical. Tsecha relaxed into his chair, allowing the framing to stab him where it would and thus focus his mind. They are not as idomeni. But in some future time, they would be. And idomeni will be as they. Rather sooner, that inevitability, if his Council’s behavior with regard to the idomeni sicknesses was indication. The thought made him hesitate. John and I as one.

  From far away, the tones announcing his late-afternoon sacrament sounded. Tsecha rose as quickly as his bent, inflexible seat allowed, but not before resetting the comport for internal communication and notifying Security of his wish for a conference.

  John and I as one.

  Tsecha pressed his open left palm against his stomach, a gesture of supplication. Perhaps, for one of his standing, to understand fully was not to be, but the gift of some intimation struck him as most seemly—

  John and I as one.

  —and greatly to be wished.

  CHAPTER 17

  A jovial “Come in, Risa” sounded through the door just as Jani raised her hand to knock. The panel swung open in a whispery combination of mechanics and the brush of door edge over expensive carpet. She stepped onto the dark grey pile and experienced the fleeting sensation of the ground giving way beneath her as her boots sank in to just below the ankle.

  Original artwork she recognized from holozines decorated the light grey walls. As she crossed the room toward Ridgeway, ensconced behind his desk, she was treated to a wall-spanning backdrop of the lake, tastefully muted through glare-filtering scanglass. Large body of water as office accessory—very nice.

  Ridgeway made no effort to rise until Jani reached his desk. Only then did he execute a quick half-up-and-be-seated. His smile held the same consideration. “Nice of you to be so prompt,” he muttered breathlessly as he gestured for her to sit. “It’s been a hell of a day.” An errant lock of hair provided emphasis by flopping over his forehead.

  Hope I helped. Jani smiled wanly and held her tongue.

  “I do try to promote an environment which is conducive to cooperation, Risa—”

  I doubt that.

  “—and Lord knows I’m no micromanager—”

  I’d have guessed pico-.

  “—but is it too much to expect a reasoned approach to tasks at hand? Circumspection? Forethought? Is it too much to ask of people that they think things through?”

  As though on cue, the door opened, and Ridgeway’s aide entered. He still looked like the enemy artillery barrage had stretched into the third day with no end in sight. Jani shot a “take heart” grin at him, but he avoided her eye as he placed a black-edged file folder on the desk in front of Ridgeway.

  “Thank you, Greer.” Ridgeway’s smile curdled as he opened the folder, positioning
it so Jani couldn’t see what it contained, and paged through it while Greer exited silently. Then, eyes bright and predatory, he leaned across the desk and splayed the folder’s contents over the bare, polished bloodwood in front of her. “A rendezvous in the snow,” he said, triumph causing his voice to quaver. “How romantic.”

  Jani surveyed what lay before her. Sceneshots—one short sequence per panel. Snippets of action, intercutting middle distance and zoom, replayed themselves every few seconds in a rolling series. The holographer had been selective. The first display showed her diving behind the log, but not her scrabble for rocks. The angle and replay speed of the second sequence made her attempted flattening of Lucien look like a playful shove. The third scene stopped just as Lucien flipped her on her back. The overall impression given was, to say the least, incriminating.

  Just some playful precoital wrestling. Never mind the windchill—lust conquers all. Jani pulled in a slow, painful breath. She’d checked the condition of her stiff upper back in a restroom mirror upon her return to Interior Main. The dinner-plate-sized bruise had bloomed nicely, thank you, Lucien.

  The fourth scene showed her and the lieutenant making their way down the forest path, the angle of the shot hiding the shooter trained on her back.

  “Circumspection.” Ridgeway clucked softly. “Forethought. You aren’t the first slimy little traitor to lack either of those vital qualities.” His gloating smile threatened to split his face in two. “Your ass is mine now, Tyi. Evan won’t let you get away with this.”

  Jani looked from Ridgeway to the sceneshots with a lack of concern that bothered her in an abstract way. It was as though she watched the missteps of a character in a play. Augie picked the damnedest times to overstay his welcome. Ridgeway apparently wondered at her reaction as well. His smile wavered.

  “Interesting,” she managed, eliciting sounds of choking from across the desk. On another level, her mind raced. A frame, but by whom? Ulanova? She seemed petty enough, jealous of what she perceived to be Lucien’s attachment. But you’d think she’d try to wring something out of me before hanging me out to dry.