by M. J. Locke
She felt weary. No more. Not today. Let me be only a person today, not an official. Let me give honor to the dead.
But it was not to be. The mayor, Jimmy Morris, pulled her aside. Steering her so their backs were to the “Stroiders” cameras (for all the good it would do, with all the spy motes in the air), he said in a low voice, “I got the allocation numbers. You gotta do more for me, Navio. Hiro is seeing signs of hoarding. I’ve got the city council on my back. I can’t hold things together without a more serious commitment from you.”
“What do you expect me to do? I’m hearing the same thing from every alder in the cluster. It is what it is. There’s only so much to go around.”
“I’m telling you, it ain’t enough!”
She eyed him. “What kind of support are you looking for?”
“I need you to call the city council. They need to hear that Zekeston will be your top priority in the recovery effort.”
“How can you even doubt it? You know good and well Zekeston is the eight-hundred-pound parrot in all this.”
“I notice Kukuyoshi’s not suffering much.”
“We can put on sweaters. Kukuyoshi’s species can’t.”
“I see. And your decision has nothing to do with the fact that your husband gets most of his funding from the university.”
“Do you really want to go there?” she asked mildly. Jimmy Morris epitomized cronyism. She had things on him, and he knew it.
“All right, all right,” he said. He lowered his voice. “But I have a city to feed. Zekeston has ten times the population of the other two towns, put together. We’re gonna have riots. That won’t do your planning efforts much good, will it?”
She couldn’t blame him for putting the heat on. In his place she would do the same. In fact, she had held out a little on him so she would have something to give him now. But she put on a show anyway.
“You’re killing me, Jimmy.” She gave a noisy sigh. “But all right. My people say we have a little wiggle room.” She did not want to be more exact than that. “If you’ll put your weight behind the PM’s cluster-wide rationing plan when it comes up in Parliament next week, and give me your full support for my plan to get ice out of Ogilvie & Sons, I’ll boost Zekeston rations five percent.”
“Five! Don’t make me laugh.”
“Six, then.” She had set aside nine. “And I’ll add Hiro to my eyes-on list.”
He made a dour face. “What good does that do me?”
“It puts Hiro in the loop, Jimmy. Way in. There aren’t many people on it. The PM, his chief of staff, my direct reports, that’s about it. I don’t move without alerting the eyes-on list. Hiro can give me a heads-up if you get into a bind and we’ll see if we can shuffle some resources around.” It also made her job, of coordinating with Hiro, a lot easier. But she did not need to tell JimmyM that. Unfortunately, the idea backfired.
“I want on that list, too, then. I’ll tell you personally when we’re in trouble. Eliminate the middle man.” He smiled, sharklike.
You deserve your rep, JimmyM, Jane thought. She felt sorry for Hiro, working for a man like him. She shook her head. “Not ‘too.’ Instead. Too many voices means sluggish decision making. We can’t afford that.”
He thought it over. “All right.”
“And you don’t get a vote. You’re just an observer.”
“All right, all right.”
“And you only stay on the list as long as the crisis lasts.”
His gaze glittered like polished rocks. “We’ll see,” he said.
“That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
They both knew that once he was on the list it would be hard to get him off it. He would put pressure on the PM, and the city council would support him. It gave them a direct line to her resource allocation decision making, and thus a great deal of influence.
If worse came to worst, they would start up a new list, one without him on it.
He nodded abruptly. “It’ll do.”
She heard a rustling behind them. “Mr. Mayor … Ms. Commissioner … a moment of your time—” Morris fixed a genial expression on his face as a handful of other politicians came up to them. “I’m counting on you,” he told her.
As he turned to speak to the others, Jane faded through a wall of mourners and well-wishers. Once out of view of the main crowd, around on the other side of the wall, she sat down on one of the mourners’ benches and shot an e-mail off to the PM telling him she was expanding her eyes-on distribution, and why. She decided to add the other towns’ mayors to the eyes-on list as well. To preserve the balance of power. They might still play games behind her back, but putting them in the same decision-making space meant they would be making commitments that they would have to decide whether to keep or break, not play the gaps and put her in the middle as they usually did. She messaged Tania and asked her to make sure one of her people made the change in the eyes-on list, right away.
She found in her inbox an encoded message from a contact among Parliament staff: “Expect invite from jerk soon. < 1 wk?”
“Jerk” stood for JRC, the Joint Resource Committee. Jacques Reinforte’s committee. He had been given the position of chair as a consolation prize of sorts, after Benavidez had defeated him in a fight over the party leadership. No friend of Benavidez’s obviously, he would love to see her replaced. She couldn’t keep them waiting for long without looking as if she was obstructing their investigation. But she needed time—time to find out what had caused the accident, time to come up with solutions.
This was a bid for power, played out on the back of a tragedy. The repercussions from this accident, at least at first, would not happen in a courtroom, but in the media. And there was plenty of media to play in.
I’m going to need a lawyer, she thought, eyeing the note. A lawyer and a publicist. It was time to put in a call to her friend Sarah, who practiced law.
Give me as much notice as you can, she replied to her secret friend.
She spotted a Viridian holy man at the edge of the crowd. A big man, he looked Nordic, or Germanic. He had a bolt of hair tied at the crown of his head, with a cascade of metal beads and fiber optics laced through it, bouncing in the light gee. He wore a loose-fitting outfit, overlaid with a rainbow stole of knotted cords, and had a staff of oak with a spiral helix design. He seemed to be shadowing her; she had noticed him a few times at the periphery of her vision, but had managed to avoid him till now.
“Commissioner Navio!” he said. He was so near this time, and the crowd was so thin, that she couldn’t ignore him. She stood.
“Thor Harbaugh,” he said, and held out his hand. Jane shook it. “I just wanted to thank you for coming. It would have meant a lot to Ivan.”
Ivan Kovak. The driver who had precipitated this whole thing. Anger flooded her veins. “I assure you, I’m not here for him.”
Harbaugh looked shocked at her bluntness, then pensive. “You’re not alone in your feelings. How well did you know him?”
“Not at all.”
“I knew him only a little. His family wasn’t that active in the gather, but after his partners left, he came more often. He was a troubled man.”
Jane studied Harbaugh. Curiosity won out over distrust. “Did he talk to you about his intentions?”
“You mean, about his reasons to commit suicide?” Harbaugh shook his head. “I know little. But I do know he was in pain. His life partners left the cluster and took his children away, and he had no legal recourse. His psychiatrist informed me the antidepressants he was on countered the depressant effect of the hallucinogen he took. He was essentially a walking corpse by the time he climbed into his rig.” He shrugged. “I wish I’d known. My foresight failed me. I deeply regret this. I feel responsible.”
“Your foresight?”
“Yes, sometimes the Nameless grants me foreknowledge.” He hesitated, and smiled. “In fact, I’ve foreseen something about you.”
Annoyed. She was definitely annoyed. “Indeed.”
“Yes. The Nameless has a purpose for you. I’ve dreamt it. Ze has touched you, hasn’t Ze?”
She stared. Harbaugh watched her with a growing look of satisfaction. Panic lurched in her gut. Mote density had diminished on this side of the memorial, away from the crowds, but mites—cameras—gleamed in the crannies all around. “You’re delusional,” she said in a flat tone, and walked away, barely avoiding launching herself into the air. She ducked into the trees, hands trembling and heart racing.
Get a grip, Navio. The cameras are live.
Rather than head for the nearest lifts—to do so, she would have to pass not only Learned Harbaugh but everybody else in the clearing, and she was not up for small talk—she climbed up into a nearby tree, and swung through the forest as fast and hard as she could—foot-to-hand-to-hand-to-foot, following the trail markers down, level after level, terrace after terrace, down toward the Rim.
She breathed. Sweat flew off her—muscles strained and flexed in her arms, legs, buttocks, and back—the scent of grass pollens and animal scat, of flower and sap and mold, filled her nostrils; twig and bark scoured her hand and foot palms, leaf and blossom kissed her skin, her palms and soles slapped bark and shook branches, startling birds and squirrels into the air. Down, down, across, down, across, down—dizzy from the twisting of the Coriolis pull, riding it rather than fighting it. The acceleration pulled ever harder at her, and only her long tenure in space enabled her to correct for the sideways drag.
She grew calmer. It was ridiculous to let herself be affected like this. It was a coincidence. Those types were always seeing things … hearing things … channeling spirits in the machines. It would have been more surprising if he had not “seen” something to do with her. Briefly, angrily, she considered a new rule: compulsory denial of employment to anyone who espoused quackery.
She discarded it as quickly. In the first place, she would never get it past the cluster Council. And it was unfair, really. They weren’t all that nutty. And perhaps she was. She laughed. I heard a Voice; what the hell. As long as it wasn’t telling me to open my faceplate in a vacuum. Or someone else’s, she thought more soberly, recalling Kovak.
Finally the gravitation got to be too much for her. She swung over into a nearby level, and dropped to the ground to trudge down the last stretch of hill and trail. Near the exit elevator, she crept over the rocks, limbs trembling, to a stream and scooped up a mouthful of water. As she straightened, wiping away the icy wet that dribbled down her chin, pushing with her arms against the gravity that tried to pin her to the rock, she spotted a family of otters splashing and dunking each other, just upstream.
Jane took a few moments to watch them, crouched among the rocks like the curious ape she was. Her heart labored in the heavy acceleration, her hip joints ached, and her knees and back twinged. The past few days she had neglected her workout. Antiaging treatments only went so far. She should spend more time in high-gee areas.
While the otters played among the water-splashed rocks, Jane stretched out on a flat rock to warm herself, and stared up through the canopy of leaves and vines, palms cushioning her head, and took in the water’s melodic trickling, the scent of moss and leaf on the breezes that lifted her hair and cooled her sweat. She had climbed down through Nowie Spoke’s terraced descent. Kukuyoshi’s roof lay far overhead, near Zekeston’s hub: she could see its silver-grey curves, a kilometer up.
It was as deep a living sky as she had seen since she had left Earth so long ago. Light from hidden sunlamps filtered down through the layers of growth, casting a green glow over the world. Who’d have believed there could be so many shades of green? Emerald; teal; pine blue; smoky grey-green; the yellow green of meadow grasses; the cool pale jade of tree moss. Over here, maroon-veined leaves spread out in a blanket; over there, a giant salamander’s greeny brown back moved against slate dark stone. Birds and squirrels made the leaves dance on hundreds of levels, as high overhead as any rainforest canopy.
She loved this place. She, its executioner.
Jane closed her eyes. Floating on a pillow of exhaustion, she thought about the Voice again. It had been a hallucination. She knew that. But something in her longed to hear it again. To be known again, and loved, the way that Voice had known and loved her. She remembered how it had felt, ringing through her like a sigh, like a wave, a slow and powerful current sweeping her along. It reminded her of the arms and soft croons of a mother—cherishing, giving comfort, a comfort as powerful and gentle as Kukuyoshi’s green presence.…
And thus it came, a tuneful whisper, summoned by her desire and welling up on her memory of the earlier time. Jane …
Her eyes flew open; she came upright and looked around, her breath caged in her throat. Its tone had been cautious, almost despairing, as if It expected to be denied. But somehow It felt more real than reality itself. It came from so deep within that It opened onto some infinite inner space.
But all around, everything seemed normal. Birds were twittering. Breezes and small animals rustled the leaves. She sat there, absolutely quiet, with that strong acceleration tugging at her limbs and face and heart.
Despair. Now there was a disturbing thought. If God despaired, what hope could there be?
“What do you want?” she asked finally, hoarsely (What do You want?). Her pulse pounded dully in her throat as she spoke, and her breath grew short. (By answering, she acknowledged Its existence.)
No response came. Not in words. But she sensed that Whoever or Whatever this Being was—and she couldn’t help thinking of It in capitals—It needed her help. Hers, Jane’s. She choked on an incredulous laugh. “You need my help?” You must be joking.
Vast, unutterable sorrow came.
“No,” Jane protested. She hunched her shoulders under the onslaught.
“Commissioner Navio.”
Jane jerked at the sound, knocking rocks into the stream. The otters scampered up onto the far bank, flung water off their oiled coats, and vanished into the underbrush. She spotted two men in business suits. They stood at the side of the clearing nearest the exit.
Jane stood, brushing herself off. “Gentleman, if you need to talk to me, you’ll have to make an appointment.”
“I’m afraid there’s not time,” the slim one said. “I’m invoking legal privacy on behalf of my client.” At his words, a dusting of dead spy-motes drifted down around them. A lawyer, then. And she did not know him, which meant he wasn’t local. A power broker, flown in from elsewhere. He wore a four-piece suit that had to have been bought on Earth or Mars: they did not manufacture five-thousand-troy business suits this side of Mars orbit. His sammy cache was all but empty; his companion’s was not, and contained a lot more red than green. Not a good sign.
Some company had sent these two to see what advantage could be gained during the crisis. The privacy likely meant a bribe was in the offing. And/or a veiled threat or two. She had seen it all before.
“I have an urgent matter to discuss with you,” he went on. “On behalf of Ogilvie & Sons, Inc.”
Ogilvie & Sons! Of course. It made perfect sense. Arms folded, eyebrows raised, she let the silence stretch. The big, stout one moved and started to say something, but fell silent at the thin one’s look.
“I’m Nathan H. Glease,” the thin one said, and beamed his business data to her. He did not introduce his companion. Ah; the unspoken threat.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me something I don’t know, Mr. Grease.”
Glease gave her a pained smile at her mispronunciation of his name. Yes, it was a childish thing to do, she thought. So sue me.
“See here,” he was saying, “perhaps we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.” A native Upsider would have said the wrong hand. He was probably Martian by birth. It made sense; his accent had a Martian lilt, and the Ogilvies would be unlikely to trust an outsider with their business. “I realize this is an intrusion, but I thought you’d appreciate our approaching you in a more secluded setting.”
She
remembered then that she had seen them at the ceremony. It angered her that men like these would insinuate themselves into such a deeply painful, personal event. “Would you care to explain how you obtained an invitation?”
“I needed to speak with you, and you’ve been hard to reach.”
“Yes, and with good reason.”
He ignored that. “If you’re smart, you’ll listen to what I have to say. My sources tell me you’re anything but stupid. Don’t start now.”
“If you were as smart as you no doubt think you are, you’d stop insulting me and get to the point.”
“All right. It’s simple. You need ice; Ogilvie & Sons wants access to Phocaea as a market. We want to make a deal.”
Jane laughed. “Oh, please. Float away, fellows; we don’t need your deal. We’ve got plans of our own.”
“Ridiculous. We both know there’s no other shipment that could get here in time. You have to deal with us, Commissioner. You might as well accept that. Things will go easier if you do.”
“I think not. I’ve lived on Vesta. I know what happened there. We don’t intend to make the mistake they did by opening the door to you here.”
She started to push past them, but the big one stopped her with a grip on her arm. His grinning aggression chilled her. The need to inflict pain was a banked fire in him. She noticed that his hands were manicured, and he wore a hand-made, knitted muffler that went down to his knees.
Glease said, “Consider carefully. It’s not just Phocaea’s future we’re talking about. It’s your own. Mills.” The muscle released his grip, and Glease pulled out a lozenge, holding it up so it could catch the light. “Here’s the code to an account holding five hundred thousand troy in your name. We’ll give you another million in an unmarked account, if you support us.”
