“Then pull in your horns or I’m taking a hike.”
“Shardul, Sri Ythen, please.” For a little woman, she could put a lot of authority into her voice. “Sri Ythen, we need you because you are Kelon, and you are also matos and can tell if someone is lying. With your gift, we felt, since you have this tie to our people, you would be sympathetic. My niece said you were very kind.”
“Your niece? Just how many nieces and nephews do you have, ma’am?”
She smiled. “I use the terms loosely as you don’t have the exact terms in Kelon.”
“Right. Look, I might have the gene for empathy, but I’m not banis. I’m Kelon. I don’t have any special...understanding of your religion or culture. I can recommend some cops who—”
“Will you shut up and listen, you guko? She’s trying to explain.”
I glared at Rishabh and got a blue-eyed snarl back. “Well?”
Sushri Yatin’s hands fluttered. “The monuwel...we can’t ask any of our people to help. They must not see it. Only I and the guardian of the Seeker’s house can do that.”
What in sanity’s name was a “Seeker’s house”? They were using words I understood but not in any order I recognised. “But a Kelon is safe because we don’t count?”
She bowed her head. “Yes. But we need someone like you who will respect its importance.”
“Which is?”
“I can’t tell you. All I can say is I would rather lose my hands and feet than to lose the monuwel permanently.”
I never did have much patience with religious types, and only the fact she was a woman and had been polite to me since I arrived, stopped me snapping at her. “Okay, I get that. But what am I supposed to do?”
“Retrieve it. Isn’t that what you do? Retrieve?”
I looked at the sneer on Rishabh’s handsome, hostile face, and stood. “Yeah, but not today. Life’s too short. Good day, ma’am. Hope your monuwel turns up.”
Sohan tried to block the door but I outweighed him and had hand-to-hand training on top of it. A forceful hand on shoulder and arm, and he moved, wincing. I strode down the corridor without looking back.
I expected Sohan to come after me, after all the song and dance earlier, but no one did. No one bothered me at the chai house, called my phone, or followed me into the library. No one dropped by the house either—just as well, as my brother would kill me if I brought work home like that.
But as I left the library, thinking I might take the long way back home since the weather was nice, an auto pulled up beside me, the door sliding open. “Get in, Ythen.”
“Not on your bloody life, Rishabh.”
He gave me an evil smile. “Get in or I’ll initiate a complaint regarding your detective license and your method of attracting clients. I can guarantee you won’t work for months.”
“On what grounds?”
“On the grounds you didn’t get into my vehicle. I’m unarmed, of course. Are you scared?” he added sweetly.
I rolled my eyes, and climbed in. “You’re damn childish for a lawyer.”
“For a man who continued to use a term of abuse to my aunt even though she pointedly did not use it for our people, you’re damn sensitive about slights to your Kelon pride. Not that I expect anything more from the master race.”
While I tried to work out what the hell he was talking about, he gunned the engine and tore along at barely legal speed towards Gateway Park, down by the river. A popular place for courting couples, but I wasn’t going to mention that. As he pulled into a parking place, I said, “‘Banis’ isn’t a term of abuse.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means...you. Your people. Indigenous. The Nihan. It’s a nickname.”
“It means ‘albino’, you fool. The others, the aliens. It’s an insult bestowed by your charming ancestors.”
“But you’re not albinos.”
“Didn’t matter to your colonists. They called us ‘albinos’ and we called them ‘big noses’. Chuma.”
“Fascinating, but—”
“You guko never listen when we try to tell you this.”
“‘Guko’?”
He smirked. “‘Arsehole’.”
I shook my head. “Here we go again. If you picked me up to insult me, I’m warning you, I seriously don’t give a shit what you think of me, Rishabh.”
“I’m only here, Jav, because my aunt is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and that fool Harinakshi has convinced her you’re her best, last hope. Which you might be, but using you makes my teeth ache.”
“You won’t be using me because I turned the job down. And my name’s not ‘Jav’.”
“My name’s not ‘Rishabh’ but that doesn’t stop you using it.”
I wrinkled my nose at him, completely confused. “‘Shardul Hema Rishabh’. What am I missing?”
“Rishabh is my father. Hema is my mother. I’m Shardul. Would you like to be called by your father’s name?”
Every single banis I had ever encountered on the force had been recorded in exactly same way as any Kelon. We used the last name as a family name. So why was I only hearing this now? “How am I supposed to know you use a weird naming system?”
“How indeed. We only do it to annoy the chuma, of course. Nothing to do with the fact your administration pointedly refused to accommodate our traditions.”
I gritted my teeth. “I don’t want to talk politics with you.”
“Good, because you’re clearly incompetent to do so. However, I was informed you were an adequately talented investigator.”
“I can’t help your aunt. I know nothing about the artefacts trade.”
“But you know the wealthy, Sri Ythen. You know thieves. My aunt believes the monuwel was taken by accident. I don’t believe in accidents.”
“How widespread is the knowledge of this thing’s existence?”
“Limited to a handful of scholars, the guardian, my aunt, myself and Harinakshi.”
“So we come back to the likelihood it’s one of your own who took it.”
“Impossible.”
“This is where I get out of the car, threat or no threat, Shardul.”
He hissed through his teeth. “It is impossible for one of our people to have stolen the monuwel. The chuma do not know it exists. I don’t believe it was stolen by accident.”
“Those statements can’t be reconciled.”
“I know. This is what we need your help for.”
“‘We’? Thought it was your aunt and your cousin.”
“I’m using it in the loosest sense, Ythen. Someone took the monuwel intentionally. That someone is not udawatha. Or is not obviously udawatha.”
“Someone mixed-race? Passing as Kelon? Someone like me with a bit of Nihani blood?”
He sneered. “You may be matos, Ythen, but your genetics don’t make you one of us, or give you a claim to our culture. Too many chuma think it does. They think it makes them ‘special’.”
“Never met one who did.”
The proof that our family had been ‘tainted’ by banis genes had not been welcome, and my parents had urged me to keep quiet about it. My twin brother, Yashi, was a lot more relaxed about it, but his wife, Tara, didn’t like me talking about it in front of their kids.
“Who do you think fuels the trade in our cultural artefacts? Stupid Kelons sticking our precious relics, our rarest works of art, in their houses because they look ethnic and interesting, regardless of how great a sacrilege it is, or how insulting it is to the people of the Spirit. Using our symbols to make pretty textiles for your women to wear and decorate your homes. Braiding the hair of your children because it’s cute without understanding that our braiding patterns are a mark of clan identity. Cloaking themselves in superficial imitation of our culture makes them feel less guilty over what your people have done to ours.”
“Like it or not, your people are my people too.”
“A chuma man made a baby on an udawatha woman. That doesn’t make her ‘your peopl
e’, Ythen.”
“Watch your mouth, Shardul. That’s my grandmother you’re talking about. Your community has plenty of biracial couples.”
“Being udawatha is not about blood, except to the guko who see everything in terms of taint. The udawathei are those who walk in the path of the Spirit and abide by the teachings of the Seeker. Those who do not, are not udawatha, no matter how red their hair.”
I’d encountered this snobbery before and I had no interest in it. More than that, it was getting us nowhere. “I don’t see how I can help.”
“We need someone to ask around. If there is a chuma who knows of the monuwel, they’ll know why we’re asking about it. You can pose as a buyer’s representative. Anyone who realises its importance won’t be surprised at the interest.”
“That’s a crappy plan.”
“Come up with a better one. We’ll pay you whatever you ask.”
“Even if I prove it’s one of your own people behind it?”
“It is not.”
I sighed. “Okay. I’ll give it a week. More than that isn’t fair to your aunt. I’m telling you straight—I think the chances of finding this thing are so small as to be zero. And I’m not touching it unless you help me when I need it—without the snideness.”
“I’m a busy man, Ythen.”
“Take it or leave it. I don’t need the work or the money.”
“Ah yes. What do they pay cops they throw out of the force for developing empathy these days?”
“More than enough for me to be able to tell you to shove it up your arse, Shardul.”
He smiled nastily. “You realise that you’re the victim of your own people’s prejudice against my people. The anti-empathy laws are designed to keep us out of key positions. The civil liberties nonsense is a smokescreen.”
I didn’t answer. I’d left the force—okay, had been forcibly retired—nearly two years ago, but the wound was still raw. “Whatever. You help, you keep the insults to a bare minimum, or I say bye-bye. I need some names of potential buyers.”
“I’ll provide them. You’ll also need to have some cultural education so you don’t make a complete fool of yourself. I have arranged a reading list. If you come to my office tonight—”
“Sorry, no can do. A set of twins is having a birthday tonight, and if their favourite uncle doesn’t show with gifts and cake, my name will be mud. Have your people drop it over to that chai house in the morning. I’ll be there.”
He tsked. “Do you always conduct your business in such a public manner?”
“I find it cuts down on awkward conversations. Speaking of which, this is over. Take me back into town or I’ll make a complaint or two myself about a certain banis lawyer and his unethical behaviour. You know the chuma and how quick we are to believe the worst about you people.”
He started the engine. “I do indeed. Have no fear. I haven’t slaughtered any Kelon oppressors in at least six months.”
~~~~~~~~
Nettled by Shardul’s aggressiveness, it took me until the birthday supper was over and the excited twins put to bed, before I realised I’d learned more about the banis—Nihan—in a ten-minute conversation with him than from all the equality training courses on the force. The police force took equality seriously—or claimed to, despite the low recruitment rate of indigenous officers. I’d always assumed the banis weren’t interested in working with the authority of the people they saw as invaders. I’d encountered versions of Shardul a few times, though he’d been the most upfront and fearless. But now I wondered just how much of the lack of interest was caused by the unwelcoming atmosphere. If we couldn’t even manage to call them by their correct names, what did that say about the force?
Yashi opened a bottle of wine for the three of us, and as we relaxed after Tara’s wonderful meal, I asked my brother about one of his old girlfriends, from long before Tara had been on the scene. Didn’t stop her giving me a dirty look, on principle, but there was no real jealousy behind it.
“Seema?” Yashi said. “Haven’t thought about her for years.”
“Is she still on Uterden?”
“Sanity, no. She won a professorship back home. Don’t think she’s been here since before we were married,” he added, reassuring Tara with a pat on her hand. “Why?”
“Just acquired a banis client and I could do with talking to an anthropologist. I suppose I could go to the university and ask around.”
“You could try but Seema always said the department in Medele U was small and underfunded. All the main research is on Kelon. You’d think with all the material being on Uterden, they’d base themselves here, but there’s no real interest in it here. Maybe it’s changed since her day.”
“A banis client? Why would you want to work for them?” Tara asked.
“Their money’s as good as anyone else’s. Possibly an interesting case.” I shrugged. “Nothing else was coming up.”
“Yes, but it’s not going to do your reputation any good, is it? To be the banis detective. I mean, it’s hard enough with the....” She twirled her finger vaguely beside her ear.
“Madness?”
She hit me with a cushion. “Empathy, you dork. Your family makes you respectable, but you should be careful. I wouldn’t hire a detective who specialised in working for those people.”
“Are you planning to spy on me, beloved?” Yashi asked sweetly and was whacked in turn.
“What difference does it make?” I asked her. “Working for them doesn’t make me banis any more than hunting criminals made me one.”
“I know.” I sensed her discomfort at my questioning. “But your work’s all about trust, isn’t it? People want to know you understand them, sympathise with them. The banis don’t like us.”
Her kameez had a row of geometric shapes around the hem. I wondered if they were banis religious symbols. “We colonised them,” I said.
“I don’t know why they can’t get over it,” she said, pulling a face. “First colonisation was three hundred years ago. Plenty of their people live well away from us. If the ones here in Medele hate us that much, why don’t they just move back to Garle? They’ve got a whole country there to themselves—a whole continent. If they want to live like primitives, there’s always Hoshan, though I don’t know how anyone can live like that.”
“I guess they’d say we’re the interlopers, so why don’t we go back to Kelon? They were here first, after all.”
“But we signed a treaty with them fair and square. No land was taken by force, everything was done strictly by the law, theirs and ours.”
“I know, Tara,” I said. “I don’t really understand it myself. But you have to admit we’re the ones who did best out of the deal.”
“That’s not our fault. It’s like they like to wallow in history, looking for reasons to be offended. My principal wrote to a banis community leader to ask them to send someone along to the school to talk about their culture, and she got the rudest letter back. They don’t even want to help us understand them.”
“Did you know ‘banis’ is a term of abuse?”
She blinked at me, genuinely surprised. “The biracial children at the school call each other that.”
“It’s still rude, apparently. I didn’t know it either. I thought it was interchangeable with ‘Nihani’.”
“I don’t see how they can be offended if we don’t even know,” Yashi said. “They could have said.”
“Maybe they did.”
“This is what I meant.” Tara’s voice grew sharp. “You take on a banis client and now suddenly you’re criticising us for things we don’t even know about. If you make people uncomfortable, they won’t hire you, Javen. No one likes to be accused of things they can’t help, or didn’t mean.”
“I wasn’t accusing—” My brother gave me a look, annoyance rolling off him, and I shut up. “Sorry. I had a conversation today and it gave me a lot to think about.”
“More wine?” Yashi asked, and I didn’t need my empathy to know he
wanted the subject changed. He brought up a case from his veterinary practice, and Tara gratefully seized on the story. I let them talk, throwing in a comment here and there, but my mind was elsewhere. On Grandma, to tell the truth. She’d died when I was three, and I had no memories of her. Pictures showed a handsome middle-aged woman with nothing in her features or colouring to indicate banis heritage. None of our family looked anything but pure Kelon. Finding I carried the gene for empathy—a strictly banis trait—had triggered some ugly recriminations between my parents and my grandfather, who’d been completely unaware his wife was not all she’d seemed. But Grandma might not have known. The link could have been generations ago.
My curiosity was exactly what Shardul had scorned, but what was the harm? I wasn’t planning to tie my hair into braids, or wear purple lungi, or light candles at midyear and hang them up in trees. I just wanted to know about my family. If I had to live with the consequences in the form of my empathy, which had lost me my job and barred me from others, then at least I was entitled to know where it had come from.
By the time I had ordered my first cup of chai in my usual haunt, Shardul had loaded up my account with links and images about his culture and Nihani cultural artefacts. “Names, I’ll give you in person,” he said in a voice message. “Come to my aunt’s house at two. Do not be late.”
Did he seriously expect me to read all this before then? I skimmed it. All of it was by Kelon researchers. I wondered if the banis only wrote about their culture in Nihani, or whether there was some religious reason for them not to.
Flicking through the images, I recognised many shapes and patterns incorporated into consumer goods Kelons on Uterden used every day. Decorations in bars, used to give atmosphere. Even this chai house had light catchers in the windows that I now realised were inspired by udawatha meeting house windows.
I didn’t understand this obsession with banis imagery. It wasn’t as if indigenous culture or the religion was admired. The Kelon planetary government wasn’t as militantly secular as it had been after the Wars of Religion seventy-five years ago, but I hardly knew anyone here in Medele who wasn’t a Scientific Rationalist, and religious groups on Kelon were small and powerless. The banis might suspect mockery in the way their religion had been appropriated for trivial decoration, but I was pretty sure most Kelons didn’t give the matter that level of thought. They didn’t pay any more attention to the beliefs of Reformed Deists than they did to the udawathei.
Different Senses Page 12
