Code of Conduct

by Kristine Smith

  “Jani—”

  “I remember…twenty-six expressions of surprise on twenty-six faces when I entered twenty-six tents and fired my shooter twenty-six times.” Shredded the Bilateral Accord and every tenet of idomeni behavior. Slaughtered them one by one in a way no fellow idomeni had ever dared. She remembered how the shooter grip overheated and cooked the palm of her hand. I became one with my weapon that night. A real soldier. “But most of all, I remember, I have to remember, why. Because it loses something when you write it down.” She had to remember the fear she’d seen in her real soldiers’ eyes as Borgie herded them down the stairs. Remember that only she possessed the knowledge that would guarantee they’d remain alive to walk back up. “I have to remember, because everyone else seems to want to forget.”

  She turned to find Evan hunched forward, his face buried in his hands. “Trust me when I tell you, Jan,” he said, his voice muffled, “they can’t.” He rose and straightlined for the bar. “About that promise I made—I take it back.” He filled a water glass halfway with bourbon, looked at her, and poured a second. “I never thought I’d say this to anyone,” he said as he pressed the glass into her hands, “but you look like you need this more than I do.”

  Jani swirled the dark caramel liquid. Her films absorbed the ethanol vapors, stinging her eyes. The tears spilled. She tipped back the glass and drank. The bourbon burned down her throat. Desert heat.

  “Attagirl.” Evan raised his glass in a toast, then followed suit. He drank more than she did, and it seemed to have no effect whatsoever on his eyes. “What do you think would happen,” he asked over the top of his glass, “if they found out you were you?”

  Jani took another swallow. A sip, really. Her mouth had gone numb. “Court-martial. Execution, probably, unless the idomeni pushed for extradition. They’d probably want to kill me, too. Hell, the line forms in the rear—if they got inventive, they could have a Neoclona team standing by to revive me after every barrage. They could keep it going for years.” Poor John—he’d probably offer to fire the first shot. She smiled bleakly. The expression froze as her stomach cramped.

  “I won’t let that happen.” Evan reached out to stroke her arm. Then he pointed to the glazed garden. “Don’t you wish you could just press a pad and make everything else disappear. The past. Whatever’s outside the door. Just the two of us, and to hell with everyone else.”

  Jani tried to nod, but the movement started a trail of heat burning up from her stomach. She dropped her glass and bounded out of her chair, leaving Evan behind to stagger to his feet and call after her.

  She made it to her bathroom. Barely. Her body let her know bourbon was never, ever, to be considered an option again. Let us sing a song of real soldiers…first verse. She slumped against the toilet as the room spun. All dead, so you’re stuck with me. Then she lost what balance she had. Her skull impacted tile with a vibrating crack.

  CHAPTER 20

  “Here is your seat, sir. Would you like a program?”

  Tsecha accepted the small booklet the young female handed him. He fingered a page and frowned. Paper-plastic interweave. Sturdy, perhaps, but no more so than mid-grade parchment. He looked over the polished gold railing and down at the banked rows of seats. So much red. Every chair had been covered in material like blood in color, even the less honored ones in the rows above the level of his head, which he had to squint to see in the half-light.

  Behind him, doors opened and closed. “The bar is fully stocked,” the female continued, “as is the cooler.” An expectant silence followed. Tsecha turned to find her standing beside an open food repository which had been set into the back wall of the small space. “There’s a seasonal fruit tray,” she said, pointing to a multicolored pile, “and cold hors d’oeuvres. There’s a touchpad by your seat that will connect you to our service area. In addition, a member of our staff will stop by throughout the course of the evening. If you prefer hot food, or if the bar lacks something, just ask, please.”

  Tsecha stared at the fruit tray. Such large pieces. All so mixed. Together. After so long, with all he had come to accept, still it shocked him. And just resting there, for anyone to look at, to touch. And stored with meat and grain. The words of his esteemed enemies in Temple sang in his mind. They do not know their food. A killing insult to any idomeni, even Haárin, but one which meant nothing to humanish.

  “Will there be anything else, Mister Hansen?”

  Tsecha blinked. His films, the darkest brown he could find, squeezed his eyes, drying them as the winds that blew through Rauta Shèràa. “No,” he said, “thank you.” He smoothed his humanish neckpiece, black as his evening suit, and curved his mouth without baring his teeth. “I am quite fine.”

  He did not sit until the female left him. So unseemly, to remain standing in the suborn’s presence. The anxiety that plagued him during these excursions coursed through him with his blood. Not a good idea, his Hansen of the godly hair had told him the first time Tsecha tried to impersonate humanish. The words sore thumb had also been used, although when Tsecha had sought to divine their meaning from his handheld, the definitions made no sense.

  Despite Hansen Wyle’s misgivings, Tsecha’s first sojourn had gone well. One of Eamon DeVries’s females had helped with makeup. John Shroud himself had applied the eyefilms. His Jani, who was still a lieutenant then, arrived later to brief him on things a colonial humanish should know. You’d never pass as Earthbound in a thousand years, nìRau, she had told him, so somber in her stiff uniform. Don’t even try. She had been more concerned about his excursion than Hansen. Her doubt, more than anything, had driven Tsecha forward.

  He had served as a tour guide to a group of the humanish Consulate’s high-ranking visitors. He had been commended for his expertise as he escorted officials through the city of his life. In the process, he learned more of humanish behavior than he ever could have from his handheld or his discs.

  “I was even given tips.” Tsecha bared his teeth as he recalled the pile of chits and the look on Hansen’s face as he counted them. Only you could turn a profit from acting like a jackass, his godly hair had said. Those words also made no sense. He had not acted as an animal, but most assuredly as humanish. One of the officials had even asked him if he was Phillipan. That had made him feel most proud.

  He looked again over the railing. Humanish streamed in through many doors, then wound down aisles and up and down steps to their seats. Some had guides, dressed in dark blue tunics and trousers as his female had been. Others found their own way. A few could not, however, and wandered as though lost. Once or twice, voices rose as small groups waved their arms and pointed to seats. Tsecha bared his teeth. The number on the ticket is to match the number on the chair. That, he had learned on his own, only a short time ago, and by himself. Only humanish could turn such a simplicity into confusion.

  He stroked the arms of his seat. The cloth that covered them felt as close-clipped fur, pleasing to his touch. My nìa Sànalàn has told all I am at high prayer. A series of pleas to each of the Vynshàrau’s eight dominant gods, the holiest rite for a chief propitiator. Not even the head of Temple or the secular Oligarch could disturb him at such. Nor my nìa. For such did she believe as well. That he lied to his suborn at all did not disturb him as much as that he did so so easily. The change had embraced him already, perhaps, leaving none of its physical signs. I am one with my kìershia, my Captain. I am toxin.

  Tsecha directed his attention to the front of the huge room. A large drapery, shiny as metalcloth and dark gold in color, separated the audience from the place where the performance would occur. A holodrama, to be performed by images of humanish actors, both living and dead.

  He studied his program, which had been printed in the dominant humanish languages, decoding his way between blocky English script and more logical Mandarin. Tales of Arthur. An ancient dominant. A king. There would be battles on horseback and tragic love. Witches. Dragons. And a dancing goat. Tsecha made a gesture that would have shocked h
is suborns and made Hansen Wyle laugh. He longed for his handheld, if only to inform him what exactly a goat was.

  Loud voices and laughter drew his attention. Other compartments like his ran along the curved sides of the immense room. The noise emanated from the third compartment to his right. The curve of the wall was such that he could see quite clearly the owners of the voices. Which meant, of course, they could see him as well.

  Anais Ulanova expected to see no idomeni this night. The gown she wore glowed red as molten metal, revealing her body in the way many humanish females preferred. Five others joined her, three males and two females. Tsecha recognized Treasury Minister Abascal and his solitary wife, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Langley and a very young female he had once heard some humanish refer to as flavor of the month. Only this female was most dark, while the one he had seen at his welcome ceremony had been most light. A seemly elevation for all involved, he felt sure. Most as idomeni. Why then did the humanish laugh so?

  Tsecha looked at the third male, who stood behind Anais’s chair. He wore the uniform of a Service officer. Most young, he seemed; only the flavor appeared younger. His hair is almost as John Shroud’s. Tsecha grew conscious of the fact the male studied him as well. He responded with the slight nod Hansen Wyle had told him was suitable for such meetings.

  The male did not nod back, but continued to stare openly until Anais claimed his attention by turning in her seat and gripping his hand. Only then did he smile, baring his teeth almost as widely as Vynshàrau as he leaned toward his dominant. Quite a seemly pairing, perhaps, if one looked only at faces.

  But Tsecha studied the man as idomeni. The stiffness of his neck. The angle of his head as he sought to turn away from the Exterior Minister without seeming to. How his left hand, hidden behind his back, clenched and worked. Almost as simple as idomeni, these walls, at times. Anais’s warrior is not a willing suborn. Then what held him there, as spikes to the floor?

  With signal flickers, the illumins died. Voices faded. Once more, Tsecha felt the male’s gaze upon him, piercing through the half-night as a weapons sight. At last, the blessed curtain rose. The humanish clapped their hands, and the booming, wheezing disorder that constituted their music began. Even as the noise buffeted him, Tsecha felt his fear leave. With such as Anais’s unwilling warrior near, he felt more comfortable in the dark.

  If my Temple knew me to be here, I would be made Haárin, and truly.

  The hologram actors, clothes aglow with too-vivid color, voices more measured and clear of tone than any humanish speech Tsecha had ever heard, displayed the story of the king. The Vynshàrau worked against the aggravating comfort of his chair. If only there were some humanish he could trust, who could explain this king to him!

  Why is he dominant, this Arthur, when he has no more sense than a young one? His dominant wife had agreed to elevate a suborn male, who had chosen her freely. Such was a most seemly occurrence, greatly to be wished; yet the king looked upon it as betrayal, a threat to order. Then there was a skein member, a nephew, who sang of injustice and plotted murder even though he was true suborn and had no right to rule. And suborns who wore clothes of clanking metal and rode off on meaningless quests, for objects, leaving their own skein members behind, confused and grieving.

  The tragedy is the disorder! An illumin shone on the pad near Tsecha’s chair. He slapped it dark. Let his blue-clad female take her offerings elsewhere. He thought of the food repository behind him as, onstage, the actors sat down to a banquet. How they ate and drank and shouted as the humanish audience laughed and cheered.

  He watched food pass from hand to hand, from one plate into many mouths, and felt an ache in his soul. Two actors dressed in scraps of dull cloth scuttled across the stage after a chunk of meat discarded by a dominant, tearing at it as animals. Just then, the hot, spicy odor of broiling drifted into Tsecha’s compartment from another. His stomach lurched. He forced himself to stare at the carpet at his feet as his eyes watered and his throat tightened.

  He barely staunched a cry as behind him, a soft tapping sounded. “Compliments of the theater, Mister Hansen,” a voice muttered through the thin door. “If you pad me in, I can set it up for you.”

  Tsecha lowered to his hands and knees and crawled across his own floor as the beggars had across theirs. He pressed his face against the door, breathing through his mouth to shut out the stench of food not his own. “Go away,” he rasped. “I want nothing.”

  “Compliments of the theater, Mister Hansen,” the voice persisted, like the yammer of demons. “A signature is required, even if you turn it down. Procedure, sir.”

  A signature. To breathe, the humanish needed signatures. But if I open the door, I can leave. Escape the small compartment. Flee into the cold, cleansing night. Tsecha stood, scrabbled with the latch, flung the door wide and stilled as he looked into the face of Anais’s warrior.

  “NìRau ti nìRau.” The moonlight head glinted as it tilted very slightly to Tsecha’s right. An angle indicating true respect, but with no implied intimacy of friend or enemy. “Is this performance boring you as much as it is me?” He crossed his right arm in front of his chest, palm outward.

  Tsecha glanced at the designators on the man’s collar. Red bars. Mainline lieutenant. Yes, this officer had greeted him in quite the correct way, and truly. a lète ona vèste, Nemarau—his Anais’s source for High Vynshàrau had, with no doubt, come from a place much closer than an office within Exterior Main.

  “I could see you, even in the dim light.” The lieutenant led Tsecha from an upper-level theater exit and into a glass-covered walkway suspended above the street. “You began fidgeting during that scene in the stables, where Lancelot fed his horse as he sang about Guinevere. After that, I waited fifteen minutes, then came by to pay my respects.” He turned, hands linked behind his back. Even in the dark, his hair shimmered. “Actually, nìRau, I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did. Makes me wonder what you were trying to prove.”

  “Prove?” Tsecha slowed, stepping around the man as though avoiding a hazard in the street. “I am curious only, Lieutenant”—he edged just close enough to read the man’s name designator—“Pascal. I wish only to learn of those with whom I have been charged to deal.”

  “Well, in the dark, you appear humanish enough. And your English is exceptional, nìRau.”

  “It is not a complicated language, Lieutenant.” How easily he lied. But what could Pascal know of his handheld, or of his quest to read between lines?

  “You consider Mandarin Chinese much more respectable, for its structure and order.” Pascal proceeded down the walkway, beckoning Tsecha to follow. Beneath them, skimmers darted in the night like huge waterflicks, following the phosphor trail of the well-illumined roadway and bright buildings. “And French, for its sound.” His pace quickened as he stepped off the walkway and down a narrow flight of stairs. Then came a series of winding indoor hallways.

  We are in a building now—and I am most lost. Tsecha hurried after Pascal as they passed through door-lined halls and lobbies much as those in Interior Main, though smaller in scale. The other humanish he saw were male. Some stood in the halls and talked; others emerged from rooms in pairs or groups. At times, curious glances came to rest on Tsecha, but most seemed directed at Pascal. He ignored the attention, the occasional reaching hand or calling of his name. Instead, he walked on as though alone until he stopped before one of the identical doors, removed a key card from his tunic pocket, and coded his way inside.

  The room contained only a bed, a frame chair, and, in a tiny alcove, a humanish sanitary room. “No food,” Tsecha said. “I am most glad.”

  “People don’t come here to eat, nìRau.” Pascal unbuttoned his tunic and massaged the grooves the collar had pressed into his neck. His undershirt, to Tsecha’s surprise, matched the red stripe running down the sides of his trousers.

  “Has your Service altered its uniform code, Jeremy? I thought only white shirts were allowed.”

  The
lieutenant sat down on the bed. “A small freedom. One of the benefits of a Cabinet posting.” He looked at Tsecha with narrowed eyes. “Why did you call me Jeremy?”

  Tsecha sat in the frame chair. The seat proved nicely rigid, but he wondered the purpose for the buckled fasteners on the chair’s arms. “One of the men outside called to you in that way. Is that not your name?”

  “Sometimes.” Pascal’s lips curved in the way Eamon’s did when he felt he had been clever. “It’s handy to have access to a place like this. At times, you need to talk to someone, but neither of you wants the true nature of your discussion known. So, you come here. Much better than a cabinet interrogation room. Rather like hiding in plain sight.” He looked over at Tsecha. “My real name is Lucien, by the way, though I’d prefer you didn’t use it here.”

  “But your name is on your tunic, most easy to see. How difficult would it be for someone to learn your true identity?” It would have taken Hansen no time. Of that, Tsecha felt most sure.

  “I know. It’s just the principle of the thing, nìRau.”

  I am between lines. “It is disorderly.”

  Lucien bared his teeth and laughed. “Actually, disorderly is a more appropriate term than you’ll ever know, nìRau.”

  “Indeed.” Tsecha looked out the room’s tiny window, but there was nothing of interest to see, only the filtered illumins of buildings he did not know. “Anais will notice you are gone?”

  “I told her I had a call. She’s learned to accept my devotion to duty.” Lucien continued to massage his neck. “Speaking of devotion to duty, nìRau, have you had any success with your search?”

  Tsecha shifted in his seat. He valued the focusing ability of discomfort, but he would not try wearing close-fitting humanish trousers again soon. “My search?” He touched his eyelids. They had begun to itch.