Soldier's Duty

by Patty Jansen

  She took her comm reader and left in search of a place to work in peace, or more likely, to have a snooze.

  The ground floor corridor was deserted. A single young man in black council uniform stood at the closed door to the council assembly hall. He said something in keihu.

  "Sorry?"

  He said something else, and gestured at the door.

  Izramith turned to him. "Is the council still sitting?" Must be a long session; they'd been talking since she went to the Andrahar house.

  The man gave no indication of having understood her, but opened the door for her. What the heck.

  She started to protest that she had no intention of attending the meeting, but that was going to be pointless, because he couldn't understand her. Also, she might learn something, so she thanked him and went through the door.

  It was dark in the hall beyond. The warm air and sounds of murmurs that spilled out suggested that the hall was packed with people.

  The huge chamber was an amphitheatre in which stepped rows of seating sloped down to a well-lit central area in which there was a table where councillors sat. Everything about the hall's design was pentagonal: from the tiered seating to the floor space, to the table and even the ceiling lighting.

  Izramith waited for her eyes to become used to the dark and felt her way to an empty spot on a nearby bench, a seat that didn't require asking an entire row of people to get up. Still, she managed to miss a step and almost tripped.

  She sensed several people looking over their shoulders at her.

  In the middle of the room, a man was speaking at a dais. She had seen him before: he was Emron Emiru, one of the councillors she had met on her first day. His curly dark hair hung to his shoulders, with little plaits and silver trinkets that glittered in the light. His face was red and sweaty, and he constantly wiped his forehead in the middle of his talking. His nose was large, with a groove down the middle, and he wore a wide rust-coloured kaftan with embroidery down the sleeves, which glittered when he gesticulated, which he did a lot.

  Izramith fiddled with the translate function on her comm reader, knowing that it wasn't up to translating informal speech. When translating from Mirani or Kedrasi, the modules had become good enough to at least produce something that made sense, but the keihu module made no such claims. The result was an unintelligible passage that might be grammatically correct Coldi, but made little sense to her. Apparently, he was talking about a fortitude of attributes and error is better than the seat of your pants.

  Seriously? What the fuck.

  Never mind clever technology, it never did half as good a job as a person. She could learn a lot more by watching.

  The spotlights in the ceiling made the sweat on his forehead glisten. He spoke passionately, waving his hand about and occasionally he hit the microphone. His voice sounded angry at times.

  The rest of the councillors sat at the pentagonal table in the middle of the room.

  Daya sat immediately facing her, and the Andrahar family matriarch next to him. The spotlight made her hair glow like silver fire. Daya was reading something on the screen in front of him, and she watched the speaker, a frown on her face, fingering her top lip with her right hand. Whatever he was saying, Daya didn't care and the Andrahar matriarch didn't like it.

  On the other side of Daya sat a Pengali councillor, a man with greying hair who the reader's face recognition told her was a Pengali community elder called Sheida. His duties, besides being a councillor for the Pengali, included being majordomo at Daya's house. He owned several apartments on the city's second island.

  Two more Pengali members sat on his other side, both women, whose huge eyes burned with enough anger to start throwing daggers at the speaker. At one point it looked like one of them was going to interrupt the speech, but the other put a hand on her shoulder and made a leave it kind of gesture.

  So, let's get this right: there were three sections in the council, the keihu, the Pengali and the others. They were supposed to represent different interest groups in the city and should by rights be independent of one another. Then how come one member was employed by someone from a rival section? Didn't that breach a whole swathe of regulations? Conflict of interest, for starters? Was this even allowed? At Hedron, members of the Mines board would scream branch stacking at anyone who put people related to them in any way on the board.

  Emron Emiru finished talking. People applauded, but, judging by the level of the sound, not as many as there were spectators in the room. A man at the councillors' table cheered loudly. He was dressed in dark green and the reader revealed him to be a nephew of the councillor. Jisson Semisu sat at the side, his face impassive and his arms crossed over his chest.

  So, right, now we had fucking family members on the council.

  The people not clapping were the Pengali in the audience and some of the keihu—mainly younger women. Two Kedrasi on the bench immediately outside the brightly-lit area were talking to each other, also not applauding.

  Daya spoke, also in keihu. For someone unfamiliar with the language, he sounded quite fluid. He remained at his seat, yet his voice carried through the entire hall. All whispered conversations stopped. What did he say that was so captivating?

  Izramith tried the translator again, but it didn't translate Daya's keihu any better than it had translated Emron Emiru's. Something about rightful natives and the firmament of wandering stars. Yeah. What the fuck. Someone needed to do something about this useless program.

  When he finished talking, the applause was more enthusiastic than for Emron Emiru, even though his speech had been much shorter.

  Someone at the councillors' table—a woman with her back to Izramith—made a remark that sounded sharp.

  Emron Emiru responded, equally sharp. He stepped away from the dais and made for an empty chair at the table.

  A Pengali councillor woman rose and made a second harsh remark.

  Emron Emiru responded—

  Daya slammed his hand on the table—

  A keihu woman on Emron's side of the table rose and barred his way.

  He tried to get around her, but she stepped aside. He grabbed her by the arm—

  There was a shout. A Pengali man got up from the table. Another jumped down from the audience gallery and a third came running from the other side of the floor.

  A keihu merchant rose to pull the Pengali away from his colleague.

  Within moments, the scene descended into a fight. Shouting and screaming. Black-and-white banded tails going everywhere.

  Daya hit the table with a thud. He had remained calmly seated throughout the fight. He spoke in an authoritative, commanding tone.

  People retreated to the edges of the brightly-lit spot on the floor. Guards came to usher Pengali from the audience back to their seats. But a couple of them started yelling at the councillors, and some of the younger keihu joined in. Daya again thumped his hand on the desk several times, but a woman kept yelling.

  Then another more harshly-accented voice spoke up. Isandra Andrahar rose from her seat. As Mirani Endri, she was tall, and her age had not bent her back. She spoke while walking back and forth in front of all the people who'd been in the fight and now lined up around the pentagonal table. Her voice was sharp and admonishing, its tone rich and mature. It vibrated with experience. No one interrupted her.

  When she stopped speaking, a raucous applause erupted, and another fight started on the side of the floor where Izramith sat. Guards rushed forwards. Spectators climbed over the barriers separating the audience from the councillors and joined the fight.

  People in the audience were shouting, adding to the deafening cacophony. Very soon, they'd start killing each other. What the hell were they talking about that made them so angry?

  Izramith rose and went back up the stairs. At the door, she looked over her shoulder back into the hall. Daya was the only person still seated. Jisson Semisu and Emron Emiru were arguing with a group of women, two of them Kedrasi. Isandra Andrahar was att
empting to drag a Pengali man away from the central table. People in the audience stood in their seats, yelling.

  The foyer outside the hall was deserted except for the single black-clad attendant who was standing in position at the door, showing no signs of wanting to go in to help his colleagues. He bowed to Izramith when she came out, smiled at her and shut the door again. Wait—he wasn't curious to see what was going on inside the hall?

  "They're almost killing each other in there," she said, but of course he didn't understand her.

  He smiled and nodded and took up position with his back to the door. So—was this a normal state of affairs at a council meeting?

  That was a disturbing thought.

  Izramith didn't feel ready to go back to the security room and the question whether she should go swimming with Loxa and Dashu, so she wandered down the corridor to see what else she could learn in this warren of a building.

  Through a succession of corridors that had already been restored, she came to a modern-looking part of the building, with new fittings, electronic door panels and rooms of equipment. In this section, she found a large room—and seriously, why were all these rooms so dark? Definitely not designed for Coldi eyes—with in the middle a holographic projector surrounded by a circular bench of control panels.

  This setup she recognised from the way the same service worked at Hedron: it was the town registry. The room smelled of new paint and new equipment.

  She sat down on the seat facing the circular bench. The touch of a button brought up a holographic projection of the two islands of the city.

  It was a nifty piece of modern technology, enlargeable to the extent that it showed the designs of features in back yards and curls in the metal lattice of fences. Clicking another button brought up superimposed info boxes for each street and house. She was surprised at the amount of information the council collected in this backward-looking town. But this was clearly where Daya's information had come from.

  The man she had just seen speaking at the dais, Emron Emiru, lived on the corner of Market Street and Island Street. He was married four times and his youngest wife was barely out of adolescence. The entry for his family included a field for "official partner" and "companions", but nothing had been filled in there yet.

  The old Chief Councillor, Jisson Semisu, had no less than five wives. His house, also in Market Street, was huge, and included the glass room in the back yard which she had seen from the top floor of the commercial building.

  She scrolled over all the houses and their occupants. Nowhere were the official partner and companions fields filled out.

  Hmm. So, in anticipation of the changing laws against men having multiple women, they had to make a choice about which of their wives was their official partner?

  That could lead to interesting situations in those families.

  Izramith glanced at the door, and, seeing the corridor empty, entered "Ezmi" into the search field. The registry came up with a single entry: Daya Ezmi. He lived in Sunset Street immediately next to the airport. The Andrahar family were his neighbours. He lived in a house with a woman, Anmi Kirilen Dinzo—what sort of name was that?—and four children, all boys. She thought zhadya-born didn't have children?

  She entered "Reyar", but the registry only came up with someone called Itreyara Assa who was obviously both female and Damarcian.

  But she noticed that whenever someone's name came up, a small field told her the person's origin, so she entered Miran in that field, and the registry came up with a long list. A very long list. At a quick glance, most of the names looked Nikala, and she recognised some of them from Dashu's list of guesthouse patrons. But she was more surprised at the number of Mirani who did not call themselves visitors and who lived in regular houses on both islands of the city. Izramith understood that Far Atok was where the workers and less rich families lived. She hadn't even been to that part of the city. How did one get there? Was there a train?

  Someone grabbed Izramith by her shoulders. "Hey, I thought you'd escaped."

  "Dashu!" Shit, she'd gotten such a fright. Her heart was thudding against her ribs.

  Dashu looked at the map. "What are you doing?"

  Loxa had come in behind her. The glow from the projection lit his face, but his dark clothing made the rest of him disappear into the background.

  "Seeing what I can learn about this town."

  Her heart was still thudding loudly.

  Dashu nodded and studied the projection. "Suppose they could put a sniper on that roof." She pointed at the house opposite Daya's, which still displayed all of Daya's personal details. Crap.

  "Yes, and almost every roof along the route. I climbed to the top of the commercial building." Izramith changed the focus to that building. "From up there, you have a great view of the street."

  Dashu nodded. "Eris has an army of people lined up to check all those places on the days before the wedding."

  "They'll only be checking the roofs and gardens."

  Dashu looked at her sharply. "Would you want to search the houses as well? These are Barresh's major respected families. Many are on the council. They'd be extremely offended."

  "These people are also coming to blows in the council meetings. I just went into the council assembly hall, and people in there are physically attacking each other."

  Dashu shrugged. "They're keihu. They've always been like that."

  "Not what I heard," Loxa said. "I've been here longer than you. Before the Two Day War, council meetings used to be more quiet."

  "But the council had no power then."

  "True."

  Izramith said, "Back then, the council had also consisted of only keihu heads of families."

  "Also true."

  Both Loxa and Dashu stared at the projection.

  Loxa met Izramith's eyes. His face was broad and reminded her of her father's. "I don't think you need to worry about keihu antics in the council. It's pretty normal that they have big bust-ups. It's a thing they do, like we fight for positions in associations."

  Izramith could hardly call that normal either, but she said no more. Maybe she was too naïve to expect that members of councils always behaved politely towards each other. Maybe that was a Hedron norm.

  No matter what he said, she was definitely going to keep an eye on the people she'd seen behaving badly, as well as the young keihu man she'd seen involved in the fight at the top floor of the commercial building. He was an Emiru, too. Some of these families had a lot of influence in this town.

  Dashu said, "So, are you going to come swimming?"

  Chapter 16

  Damn it, there was nothing for it.

  Izramith convinced Dashu that she wanted Eris and Wairin to come as well—since they'd be talking about work. Strangely, both men hadn't come back from setting up their equipment at the Andrahar hub.

  Dashu said that it shouldn't have taken them that long, so they went back to the Andrahar house to check what was going on—

  To find both of them, and Braedon, Taerzo, Liseyo and the twins, playing with the ball in the garden.

  Eris yelled, "Hey, guys, come join us. We need more people on the team."

  All right. That was better than swimming. Dashu and Loxa joined the team with Taerzo, Wairin and one of the twins. Izramith joined Braedon, Eris, Liseyo and the other twin.

  Braedon explained the game. "You're in the batting team. Someone is going to throw the ball at you, and you stand here, in front of the planter box, and you have to defend the box with the bat. The ball is not allowed to hit the box. Instead, you'll whack it as far away as you can. You get more points the further you hit it. If you hit the ball and someone from the other team catches it, you're out."

  Izramith said, "That's a very unusual game. Where does it come from?"

  "Anmi, Daya's wife, grew up on a non-gamra world and she says they used to play it all the time. She brought the bat, and said it was given to her by her adoptive father. The game is called cricket."

 
Izramith sat on the bench next to Braedon while Eris started with the bat, a length of wood with a flat side and a handle. He turned out to be quite deft with it, dispatching the ball into the garden beds with a loud thwack. But after a few hits Taerzo caught him out. Next was Braedon, who also did quite well, obviously having done this before, but he was eventually caught by Dashu, who dived into a garden bed to catch the ball.

  Liseyo was up next, looking really awkward. She was holding the bat wrong and standing wrong with her feet. Taerzo threw the ball. She swung the bat, missed the ball and it bounced between her legs to the planter box.

  "Aw!" She threw the bat down, and marched across the garden to sit on the lovers bench under the creeper with the floppy pink flowers. Izramith felt sorry for her. She'd been surprised when she discovered that the women of Indrahui never learnt how to fight. Clearly, the girls of Miran never learnt to play games.

  Miruhan in her team was next. He did quite well. His brother was tallying the score—and it was quite a complicated system based on how far into the garden the ball went. If it rolled under the veranda, that was good for six points.

  Wairin caught him out.

  Then it was Izramith's turn.

  By now, the light was starting to go golden and the house cast a long shadow over the yard. Standing just outside it, she had to squint to see. The handle of the bat was wound with some kind of material with little holes in it. Something was printed on it, in a script she had never seen before. She weighted the wood in her hands. It was a bit on the light side to make a good swing, but it would do.

  "Come on, you do better than me," said Miruhan in curiously accented Trader Coldi.

  "I'll try. Six points under the veranda, huh?" Getting up from the bench had brought an attack of dizziness. She stood with her legs slightly apart, and made a couple of practice swings to loosen her shoulders.

  "Ready?" Taerzo asked. There was a tone of apprehension in his voice. "Be careful of the house."

  She grinned. "Ready."

  Taerzo threw the ball, much harder than he had done with the others. Izramith was back at guard training. Heard the Training Commander's voice. Concentrate! Watch your opponent! Focus your anger! Her vision narrowed until it included only the fast-approaching ball. Oh, she was angry, at everything. Her family, the heat, this chaos of a town, her inability to function normally, Dashu and Loxa and how they kept pushing her.