Fool's War

by Sarah Zettel

  Dobbs sat silently for a moment, watching Al Shei’s bewilderment. At last, the wrinkles in Al Shei’s forehead smoothed out, except for the one vertical line between her eyebrows. “Why are you bringing this out now?”

  “Because its the only thing I can do,” she said. “It’s the only way you’ll understand what’s really going on around you and figure out what we can do next.”

  Al She pressed her palms together and rested her forehead against her finger tips.

  “All right. All right. Resit will need your statement about what you know, and…”

  Dobbs shrank back. “Al Shei, I can’t make a public statement about this. I can’t expose the Guild.”

  Al Shei stared at her, as if trying to understand what she’d just said. “You won’t speak in court?”

  Dobbs spread her hands. “You can’t take the Guild into court. I’ve told you who, what we are. If you take us to court…it’ll be over. Everything. There are thousands of lives bound up in this.”

  Al Shei’s breathing grew harsh and ragged. “My husband is under arrest, falsely accused by your…confederates. You know this. You will make a statement attesting to this fact.”

  “Al Shei,” began Yerusha. The engineer shot her a look full of such venom that Yerusha shut her mouth without finishing.

  Dobbs swallowed her fear. Al Shei hadn’t really heard anything she’d said yet. Her mind was totally focused on her husband’s arrest. Dobbs tried to keep her voice steady, to use her training, to remember everything she knew about this woman in front of her, but all her knowledge seemed to run away like water. “Your grief is not with the Fool’s Guild, Al Shei,” she said as firmly as she could. “Your real grief is with Theodore Curran. We need to try to find him. Let me try to find out where he’s based.”

  “And then what?” demanded Al Shei. “You just told me it was the Guild who raised the false charges against Asil. When will they be brought to answer for it?”

  Yerusha spread her hands. “He’ll be let go, Al Shei. They’ll have to. There’s nothing to the charges.”

  “They’ll let him go with a fraud charge to his name.” Her eyes were thunderous. “He is an accountant. A fraud charge could ruin him, even if it is untrue. The source of the charge must be rooted out. It must be seen to be a conspiracy against my family.”

  “Al Shei, I won’t speak against the Guild in court,” Dobbs said softly. “It’ll be the end of my family if I do.”

  Al Shei leaned across the table. “Your family is responsible for the damage they have done to mine.” She stabbed the table top with her finger. “I could hold you. I could arrest you right this second on my captain’s authority and tell the whole of Settled Space what you are.”

  Dobbs felt the blood in her body drain down to the soles of her feet. “You wouldn’t do that, Al Shei. You know what will happen. We’d be hunted down.”

  Slowly, Al Shei sat back. “You talk as if you have told me a small thing, Dobbs. Like this is nothing at all.” She jabbed her finger toward the hatch. “There are two thousand people out there who are not people at all. You are an AI in a bio-vat body. One of thousands. You have presented yourselves to Settled Space under false guise. You have lied to us. To all of Settled Space for two hundred years!” She threw up her hands. “And now, you are asking me to trust you! You ask me to be like a Freer and blindly worship the product of Human technology.” Yerusha jerked herself forward, but Al Shei didn’t give her a chance to interrupt. “You, maybe, maybe, I could, but you are asking me to trust your Masters not to do anything else to me, to my family.” A cold light burned behind her eyes. “You say they did this because they were afraid of me. Well, if this does not slow me down or silence me enough, what will they do next, Dobbs? Can you tell me that?”

  Dobbs’ head swam and she could not find an answer. What answer was there? Al Shei was right. There was no knowing what the Guild would do next. They’d been ready to kill her, and she was one of their own kind.

  Dobbs stepped around the chair to the side of the table. “I want to try to stop this,” she said, pressing both hands flat against the table top. “I need time to find Curran and prove that some of the Guild Masters have become… corrupt.”

  “Then what? You still are what you are. Your masters are still guilty of this act, and I still know what I know. What then, Dobbs?” Her eyes were wide, almost frightened now. “This much has already happened. My crew was endangered and my husband has been arrested. It is too much to ask me to believe that nothing like this will ever be done again. Your people have power Dobbs. They will use it. They have already used it.”

  Dobbs felt her own eyes begin to widen. Al Shei wasn’t listening. She wouldn’t see. She was going to…going to…Dobbs throat clenched. She had no idea what Al Shei was going to do, and that filled her with fear.

  Al Shei looked away. “I am right now remembering you saved the Farther Kingdom, and that you saved my crew when your masters told you not to. But I may not remember this for long.” Her fists clenched and unclenched. “Especially if I cannot find other proof to clear Asil’s reputation. If you cannot help me, help my family, I cannot protect you. You had better get off my ship.”

  Dobbs took a step back. She didn’t mean it. She couldn’t mean it. Al Shei’s eyes had turned as hard as granite and she stayed stock still where she was.

  Dobbs turned around and ran. She ran down the corridor. She pushed past Odel and nearly careened into Javerri in the airlock. Javerri exclaimed something that Dobbs couldn’t understand and she bolted out into the station, through another hatchway was another set of stairs. Dobbs ran down them as fast as she could place her feet.

  Al Shei watched Dobbs retreat from the conference room. Yerusha turned on her heel and followed the Fool a split second later. Al Shei’s heart sank inside her. She wanted to call Dobbs back, but she knew she couldn’t. Dobbs wouldn’t help. Dobbs wouldn’t do anything. Then, out of this was the only safe place for Dobbs to be, before Al Shei’s trust was stretched any thinner, before the Guild was blasted wide open. If Yerusha wanted to get involved, that was her decision. A rental pilot could get the Pasadena back to Earth if she didn’t come back

  What, she thought wearily, am I going to tell Lipinski about Dobbs?

  She shoved that thought to the background. Lipinski’s reactions would have to take care of themselves. She had other things to worry about of right now.

  Using the table top boards, Al Shei opened a line to Port Oberon’s flight schedulers. She requested to speak to Geraldo Taylor.

  The view screen beside the intercom lit up to show Taylor’s genial, heavily-moustached face.

  “Hello, Al Shei! How are you doing, mi capitan?”

  “Not so well, Taylor,” she admitted. “I’ve got bad news from home, and I’ve got to get back to Earth, fast.”

  The smile faded from Taylor’s face. “Al Shei, you know how tight we have to run things here, especially on the Earthbound flights.”

  Al Shei leaned forward. “Please, Taylor. My husband is in trouble, and I have got to get home.” She had sent three separate fast-time calls to Bala house in the past five days, all her accounts could stand. Each time she’d gotten Uncle Ahmet. She’d spoken with him and her children, her sister and her grandmother, but never with Asil. Not once. He wasn’t home was all anyone would say to her. There had been no messages from him. None. Why hadn’t there been any messages? Her fear painted him in a Management Union security chamber being questioned again and again about things he knew nothing about.

  Taylor ran one finger along his moustache and looked down at his boards. “Let me see if I’ve got any empty Earthbound slots at all…” His shoulders bobbed as he worked his boards. Then, he froze. When he looked up at Al Shei, his face was uneasy.

  Al Shei felt her heart plummet. “What is it?”

  “It’s major, Al Shei. We’ve got a red flag on your ship.” He glanced down again and read the directive off the screen. “Hold at port until Management Uni
on escort arrives.”

  Very aware that Taylor was watching her, Al Shei kept her hands still and her head up. “Does it say what the flag is for?”

  Taylor scanned his boards. “Somebody thinks Marcus Tully left some contraband aboard.”

  Oh, Merciful Allah! Why is this hitting now? Al Shei set her jaw. “Taylor…”

  He held up both hands and shied back. “Do not even start to ask me, Al Shei. You’ve been impounded. I haven’t got the authority to do anything about it, even if I wanted to.”

  Al Shei’s resolve gave out. She rested her forehead against her hand.

  “Look, Al Shei, nobody’s accusing you of anything.” There was a note of desperate consolation in Taylor’s voice. “I’m sure as hell not. The M.U. ship is only two days out. They’ll come in, pick up Tully and take you back home.”

  Al Shei raised her eyes. “Tully’s here?”

  Taylor nodded. “House arrest. Somebody bailed him out of the brig…”

  Ah. That would be Uncle Ahmet, at Ruqaiyya’s insistence. This was something else her family had neglected to tell her. “All right, Taylor.” Al Shei tugged at her tunic sleeve. “Thanks for the information.”

  “Sorry it’s all bad news, mi capitan,” he said earnestly. “I promise you, next trip through will be smooth as smooth. I’ll even buy the coffee.”

  She mustered a cheerful note for her voice. “I’ll hold you to that.” She closed the line and buried her face in her hands.

  Two days! Two days before she could move, and then another five days before she would reach Earth. Seven whole days before she could reach Asil. Seven more days her children would have to face this disaster without her there. Seven days before she could do anything.

  She lifted her head. “Intercom to Resit.”

  “Here,” Resit’s voice came back. “I’m about to guess that you’ve just learned what I’ve learned from this lovely official bulletin in my desk.”

  Al Shei brushed the table top with her palm. “Is there anything we can do about it?”

  There was a pause. “I’ve got Incili running the options, but I don’t think so. They’ve got us tightly clamped, especially since Tully appears to have done what he’s accused of. If we try to get out of this, we become accessories.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.” Al Shei stood up. “All right, I’ll see you at prayer. Let me know if Incili comes up with anything before then. Intercom to close.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Intercom to Schyler. Did you get the lovely official bulletin too?”

  “I did.” He sounded easily as tired as she felt.

  “We’ll need a crew briefing to inform everybody of the situation and their rights. Resit will represent everybody, but they can get independent counsel if they want to protest any restrictions on their movements.” She hesitated. “Get it together, will you? In about half an hour.”

  “Aye-aye, Engine.”

  “Intercom to close.” Al Shei levered herself out of the chair and cycled open the hatch. She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead as she crossed the corridor and opened the hatch to the stairway. She didn’t want to see anybody right now. She just wanted to get to her cabin. She had to talk to Asil. She had to find out how he was. She had to do that now. She couldn’t stand to wait anymore. She climbed to the berthing deck, barely hearing Schyler’s general announcement about a mandatory briefing.

  In her cabin, Al Shei locked the hatch and then activated her desk. She bit her lip as she opened her personal account. As she had been afraid of; there was not enough left in there to make a long fast-time call to Earth.

  She wrote the commands for a link to the bank lines. She could have gotten Lipinski to do it, but she didn’t want him to hear what was coming next. The link opened and her credit started draining away into it. “To Ahmet Tey, urgent delivery from Katmer Al Shei, will you open a fast time to me aboard the Pasadena at Port Oberon?” She closed the link and sent the message on its way.

  She looked down at the account display. She had less than three hours pay left in there.

  We’ll make it up somehow, Beloved, she thought towards the place in her mind that held all her memories of her husband. When all this is over.

  Somehow, Beloved, he answered in her mind. We’re a long way from finished with this, Katmer.

  A text message flashed across her memory board, catching her eye and yanking her out of her reverie.

  INCOMING FAST-TIME FOR RECEIPT BY KATMER AL SHEI.

  Al Shei wrote ACCEPT and added a period. The desk absorbed the command and lit up the view screen.

  Uncle Ahmet, as dignified and immaculate as ever, sat calmly on his side of the screen.

  “Salam, Katmer,” he said solemnly. “I am glad you are back in the system safely.”

  Al Shei bit down on the first, caustic reply that rose to her mouth. “So am I, Uncle. I was hoping I might speak to my husband to hear how he and the children are doing under the stress.”

  Was it her imagination, or did Uncle Ahmet hesitate? “Muhammad and Vashti are well,” he answered smoothly. “Your grandmother and I thought it best they be put in the care of your brother and sisters until you can return here. They have said that their only sorrow is that they miss their mother. They are at their schools just now.”

  What Uncle Ahmet didn’t say bit deeply into Al Shei. He didn’t say “your grandmother, your husband and I.” He didn’t say Asil had anything to do with the decision to send the children to her siblings.

  “And where is Asil?” She resisted the temptation to crane her neck to try to see around the corners of the screen. “How is he? May I speak with him?”

  There it was again. A split-second hesitation from her completely composed Uncle. “Asil, I am sorry to say, is not here. This sad business has called him away from home just now.”

  Al Shei felt the heat of her anger rising. “Uncle Ahmet, is he in police custody?” I will not be lied to! I will be told what is happening to my husband!

  “He is not in police custody.” No hesitation. His eyes and voice remained completely steady. “But he is not here, Katmer. As soon as I speak with him, he will know of your concern. When will you be returning home?”

  Behind her hijab, Al Shei steadied the trembling in her chin. “In seven days. We are delayed here at port because…” Al Shei hesitated herself. No, she decided. No more covering. “Marcus Tully is under suspicion of smuggling. The Pasadena has been impounded. We cannot leave until the Management Union ship comes to escort us.”

  Uncle Ahmet inclined his head once. “I was aware of that. Ruqaiyya wanted to go join her husband, an admirable if misguided desire. Divorce proceedings are being discussed.” By who? Al Shei wondered. Her fists wanted to clench.

  “Uncle Ahmet, how is the case against Asil being prosecuted? Is there a trail date or is the investigation still going on?” She leaned forward, pride forgotten. “Please, Uncle, tell me what is happening to my husband. I have some information here, evidence that will help, but my sources are not all that reliable…”

  This time she saw it for sure; his eyes did flicker away from her, looking for answers elsewhere than her face. “Nothing has happened except that the accusations have been handed to the family.” He focused on her again. “Those who have made this false statement will be confronted and made to answer for their lies.” His voice almost broke then and for the first time, Al Shei sensed the tide of anger her uncle was holding back. “Come home as quickly as you can, Katmer. Your children need you here. Salam.”

  With that, the screen went blank. Al Shei stared at the blank surface. “He who keeps silent, remains safe,” she murmured. She gripped the hem of her tunic in both hands. What is going on! What is going on! Anger flared inside her, useless, helpless anger. Asil was millions of miles away, behind her silent, lying uncle and a cage of bureaucratic procedures. She could do nothing, nothing to reach him. He was trapped and she was trapped and they couldn’t even speak to each other.

  Tear
s burned in her eyes. Not now. Not now! She tightened her fists, forcing tears and fury back down into the darkest places in her soul. You have your crew to care for, and your ship to see to. You have to find a way out of this mess and back home to Asil. Then you can cry. Then you can scream.

  “Allah witness what I say,” she whispered to the backs of her fists and her empty cabin. “I will make those who have done this pay until they are bled dry!”

  She loosened her fists and smoothed her tunic down. Standing straight and proud she walked out of her cabin and started towards the conference room.

  The force of her oath seemed to follow right behind her.

  “Dobbs!”

  The sound of her name brought her skidding to a halt on the landing. She almost overbalanced and had to clutch at the railing to keep her feet.

  Yerusha pounded down the stairs behind her.

  Dobbs stared at her as she came to a halt on the next stair up.

  “I’m sorry,” Yerusha said, dragging in a long breath. “That was a bad call and it was mine. I’m really sorry.”

  Dobbs forced herself to speak. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “I could’ve guessed.” Yerusha shook her head. “It’s okay. We’ve got one option left. Come on.” She started down the stairs, beckoning Dobbs to follow.

  Dobbs’ mind was filled to bursting with thousands of contradictory thoughts. She needed to clear it, but she didn’t seem to have the faculties for the job. Following Yerusha was a simple action. She could do this much, even while her internal world was tying itself into knots.

  Yerusha trotted down three levels and stepped through a hatchway into a crowded corridor. Dobbs followed her while she zig-zagged between the crowds to an IBN outlet. She found an open privacy booth and motioned Dobbs to squeeze inside beside her. She jacked her pen into the lock. Once it verified her identity and account balances, the door slid shut. Yerusha sat in the one chair and Dobbs shuffled into the little space left behind it.

  “What are you doing?” Dobbs asked as Yerusha began flicking through the menus to open a line.