There were bound to be plenty of humans who wouldn’t cooperate, of course. Shan was waiting for the emergence of the anti-alien movements, the folks who’d watched too many vids and thought that Earth could be defended from vastly superior forces by good old human grit and unfeasibly simple countermeasures like computer viruses and water. It was the kind of mythology that developed only in countries that had no experience of being invaded by a bigger neighbor.
Why the hell did I ever come back?
Shan suspected the silent influence of her c’naatat these days, and interrogated it fiercely. Were these really her thoughts, her aims? She tested them all against logic, and faced up to the fact that she was as likely to be here now through excessive faith in her own power as through the subliminal urging of her parasite to carry it further afield to propagate.
Neither was a particularly edifying thought.
“Is that a real weapon, ma’am?” asked the police officer on the door, glancing down Shan’s back. She still carried her 9mm pistol, ancient but perfectly reliable. “Because we have gun control here.”
Shan wondered if the officer had noticed that Ade was carrying a big fuck-off ESF670 rifle over his shoulder. Maybe he thought it was simpler to ask a woman to surrender her arms first.
“I can control it just fine,” she said, trying to keep in mind that the bloke was only doing the same job that she had for so long, and it wasn’t his fault that she was a stupid cow who’d been conned yet again by her own gung ho sense of duty. “And I’ve still got a firearms permit with Superintendent Frankland written on it.”
They stood with gazes locked for a couple of seconds until the officer got the idea and gave her a brief nod. She wasn’t a cop any longer, not technically, not really, because she had to be past compulsory retirement age by a few decades—on paper; and she remembered leaving her warrant card in the cairn of rocks that Ade had built as a memorial to her while she was still dead—on paper.
Sometimes it was all about how you carried it off. She still felt like a copper and thought like one, and she probably always would. She hadn’t even wanted to be one; she’d been drafted. Now she had no idea how to be anything else.
“It’s hard to quit,” Ade whispered. “Isn’t it?”
They had a lot in common, her and Ade; everything, in fact. The queue of civil servants lining up to pay their respects were unashamedly mesmerized by meeting real live aliens from another planet. Their faces had a uniform childlike quality, wide-eyed and chins slightly lowered, that erased all gender and ethnic variations between them. Bari looked relieved. But he also looked astonished.
Shit, I did that once. When I first met Aras. A real live alien. A miracle.
She wasn’t about to take Aras for granted again, and made sure she caught his wrist and steered him close to her. Esganikan ambled down the polished hallway looking from side to side with her hands clasped as if she was considering putting in an offer for the place. Shan played her automatic game of picking out which suspects in the lineup looked as if they were breaking sweat, just to see if her old copper’s radar was still working. As they walked into the elegant period room at the end of the hall, she spotted one.
Him.
He was a little too young and plump to fit her stereotype of a career diplomat—thirty, maybe, with a face as polished as the floor and a shock of black hair—but he looked the most nervous of the bunch.
Let’s see.
Shan held out her hand, protected by gloves. The gel barrier was just too clammy to touch, not that she gave a shit if the FEU’s ambassador thought she had a limp handshake. She squeezed his fingers hard enough to see the reaction on his face.
“Superintendent Frankland,” he said. “John Pettinato, Federal European Union Ambassador to the Republic of Australia. I apologize again for the naval incident. Our ship thought the Eqbas had opened fire on our aircraft. We understand now that it was a collision.”
But his carrier group was still on station south of here. “No hard feelings,” said Shan. “You’ve got a chance now to make it right.”
Bari leapt in, clearly adept at heading off trouble in inappropriate places, and ushered them into what felt like a ballroom. “We nearly sold this place for luxury apartments last century. Costs a fortune in maintenance, but we do love our continuity.”
Shan laid claim to a chair next to Esganikan while Aras sat on the other side of her. Ade, still in his DPM rig, ended up at the far end of the long white table with his rifle propped against his leg. Incongruous didn’t even begin to cover it.
Esganikan fixed her gaze on the young diplomat and didn’t wait for introductions. “You’re John Pettinato.”
“Correct, ma’am.” He went into a commendably calm and polished routine. “I’m the FEU ambassador here. I’m delighted to meet you at last.”
“I have instructions for your government,” Esganikan said.
That, for her, was diplomatic. It was fascinating to watch two cultures racing head-on down the same stretch of road towards each other. Shan had grown so used to wess’har in-your-face frankness that she had to remind herself that it would seem brusque and aggressive to a regular human. She watched the body language around the table, and inhaled the generic scent of agitated Homo sapiens. Nobody spoke.
“Where is Katya Prachy?” Esganikan clearly felt she had waited long enough. Maybe if Pettinato tried saying sorry, a word she seemed to interpret as a slow preamble to doing as she ordered, it might have got off to a better start. “I gave your government many years’ notice that we would come to exact balance for the crimes committed on Ouzhari, and that shielding the guilty would be a crime in itself. Why have you not complied? I’ve even given you her name.”
Pettinato was holding his own. “Ma’am, we have to look into the allegation and locate Prachy, then consider where she should be tried. This is a slower process than you might wish.”
“You record all your citizens’ births and deaths, and all their affiliations and movements. You must know where she is. She still lives. I know that.”
Pettinato didn’t flinch. He turned his head to Shan as if to invite her into the conversation, not a trace of concern on his face, and then turned back to Esganikan.
“Yes, we know where she is,” he said at last. “But she’s an elderly woman now.”
“And you have no need of a trial. Hand her over to us.”
This was the point at which all human rules went out the window. Age and the judicial process meant nothing to Esganikan. Shan wasn’t sure that age had ever meant anything to her, either; surviving didn’t erase any crimes or bring anyone back to life. But now she was back on Earth, Shan felt uneasy about words like no need of a trial.
Fucking ironic. I used to manage without them quite often, didn’t I?
“You must hand her over to us,” said Esganikan.
“Commander Gai, we really do regret what happened on Ouzhari, but let me put this in context.” Pettinato had a remarkably calming voice, and it seemed a shame to waste it on an alien who wouldn’t respond to it. “A government servant acting lawfully has immunity from prosecution, so not only can we not agree to try this woman for any crime—yet—but we also can’t hand her over to any foreign power, either. We’d have to hold an inquiry into whether she acted within her powers first, of course, but as some of the people involved in managing those events have since died, and recollections are inevitably faded by time, I think we would find it hard to place any confidence in the findings of such an inquiry.”
Shan braced. Esganikan paused, head cocked. “That’s a very long way of saying no.”
“It’s not so much a no as not knowing where we might start to establish culpability, and where she might be tried if it was decided there was a case to answer.”
“If you’re not already aware, Dr. Mohan Rayat was in contact with four individuals who instructed him to go ahead with the use of cobalt weapons on Ouzhari, which are still illegal here, yes?”
“The
y are. But—”
“Three were executed on our behalf by what you term eco-terrorists. I wasn’t aware of a fourth until very recently. There are may have been more people involved in the chain of command, and if there were, I want to know who they are and if they’re still alive. In the meantime, I’ll take Prachy and the direct matter of the bombing will be closed, unless the FEU knows of others who are responsible, and then shields them, in which case there will be more people held accountable. Do you understand me?”
Pettinato didn’t seem thrown at all. Maybe this was the kind of tirade that he faced most days, but if it was, he probably didn’t realize that wess’har were absolutely literal.
That was where it had all started. Shan tried not to catch Ade’s eye. Aras watched with his usual detached fascination; this was the same conversation she’d had with him, more or less, after Surendra Parekh had killed the bezeri child, all misunderstandings and—eventually—shocked revelation.
“You might understand why we want Superintendent Frankland to stand trial in Europe, then,” Pettinato said, lobbing in his verbal grenade. “Or at least submit herself for a preliminary investigation regarding the killing of Dr. Parekh.”
“Oh, I do understand,” said Esganikan. “You want to swap Prachy for her. But she won’t place herself in your custody, and I won’t give her to you. These matters are not connected.”
Shan cringed. It was like being a kid again, with the grown-ups talking above her head about what a naughty girl she’d been. Shit, I wish I had pulled the bloody trigger on Parekh. If she admitted now that she hadn’t, then she’d look like she was afraid of facing the consequences. But that didn’t matter a damn now. She had a much bigger problem, and she knew now exactly what game the FEU was playing with Australia: make it uncomfortable enough, and they might think that it was easier to hand Shan over to Europe than to be harried by the FEU forces for months on end.
“I’m not turning myself in,” Shan said. “I know why you want me, and it’s nothing to do with Parekh—who was a child killer, by the way. She broke the local laws. She ignored my orders, too. There’s no leverage you can apply to this country, either, because you’re dealing direct with Eqbas Vorhi—no offense, Prime Minister. Shall we move on?”
Pettinato didn’t miss a beat. “That brings us to Dr. Rayat, then, who’s still missing, our naval personnel, the civilian contractors, and the Royal Marines detachment,” said Pettinato. “We would like them released.”
“The personnel from Actaeon can leave at any time they wish,” said Esganikan. “Dr. Rayat is currently on Eqbas Vorhi, and we have no plans to return him. The detachment were dismissed from your armed forces in their absence, and they are no longer your personnel—unless you agree to reinstate them, and they want to be reinstated.”
Shan could see the slightest flicker in Pettinato’s eyes as he tried to work out the moves and counter moves that just weren’t there. If she interrupted now to help him out and explain that Esganikan was listing facts, not negotiating, he probably wouldn’t believe her.
“I’m sorry about this, Prime Minister.” Shan gave Bari a polite half-smile. If she hadn’t felt so sorry for herself right then, she’d have felt sorry for him. “As soon as we get this out of the way, we’ll move onto the real business.”
“We do have an extradition treaty with Australia,” Pettinato pointed out. “And we intend to invoke it.”
“But that obviously doesn’t extend to diplomatic personnel.” So Bari wasn’t playing. “Superintendent Frankland is a resident of Wess’ej and part of the Eqbas mission. We’ll happily provide transport for your military personnel, though. And please bear in mind you were also summoned here to receive my strongest possible objection to your navy’s continued aggressive presence on the edge of our territorial waters.”
“What about the marines?” Shan decided now was as good a time as any, and it was probably her last chance to screw anything out of the FEU for them. “We need an answer.” She aimed the question at Pettinato, but Nairn cut in.
“We’ll process them with the returning colonists and grant them Australian citizenship,” he said, “seeing as they’re civilians.”
“They’re FEU citizens,” said Pettinato.
“They’re free to stay,” said Nairn. He and Bari were both looking right at Pettinato now, and Shan got the feeling this was less to do with backing up Esganikan’s buddies than taking a chance to piss over the FEU. “You’ve never claimed there was any criminal matter outstanding against them. I checked. The only sentence was dismissed the service. Because you didn’t expect them to come back once you’d flung them to the wess’har to get the matriarchs off your back.”
“Ah, and there was I thinking the language of diplomacy was still French,” said Shan. “I’m glad we’re back to plain English.”
It was Esganikan’s turn to watch now.
“It was a bad decision taken a long time ago by a different administration,” Pettinato said. He couldn’t have thought Shan would do a deal, but he might have known she spaced herself, and that would have made him think she was prone to grand gestures of self-sacrifice. “We’ll agree to let them rejoin the FEU Defense Force, of course. But we’d need to know they weren’t complicit in the deaths of Parekh…and Dr. Galvin.”
Oh, that was a punch Shan hadn’t seen coming. She had to hand it to the bastard: he’d done his homework. Rayat must have filed his reports diligently, and, by Christ, they’d gone through every word in the intervening years, looking for some lever. Yes, Galvin had died with an FEU round in her—probably fired by Ade.
“If you’ve read Rayat’s reports,” Shan said carefully, “you’d know Galvin was caught in crossfire with the isenj after she breached a curfew. I was there.”
“We know. We also know you took a serious head wound and survived…somehow.”
Ah. They just couldn’t leave it alone. It really was all about c’naatat. They were staring into the abyss, with an Eqbas task force sighting up, but they still wanted the parasite. Shan had to admire their persistence.
“Look, can we cut the crap?” She really shouldn’t have come. She really shouldn’t have changed her mind. She should have stayed on Wess’ej. “The coffee’s getting cold and this is the first decent cup we’ve had in three years. You want me? You come and get me, son. Personally. No deal.”
Shit, if I hadn’t come…they might have swapped the detachment’s reinstatement for Prachy.
I blew it.
Do they even call it reinstatement?
Pettinato still seemed to think he was negotiating. “Then it doesn’t give me anything to take back to my government to persuade them to hand over Katya Prachy.”
Esganikan looked bored, red plume bobbing. “Very well, hand her over, or we’ll come and take her ourselves.”
“End of the week,” said Shan, trying to be helpful. Esganikan wasn’t very good at specifying deadlines. Everything was now. That, at least, was very wess’har: chilled or punching. Threat is now. It was one of their defining phrases. “Because we’ll find her anyway. It’s what I do.”
The ambassador paused for a moment, looking as if he was going to ask her to explain, and then thought better of it. “I believe our business is concluded, then, Commander Gai.” He stood up and smiled perfectly pleasantly, as if it was just a mild disappointment, like finding they couldn’t fit in lunch after all, and nodded politely at Bari. “Prime Minister. Our door remains open.”
Shan had plenty of practice at toughing out hostile situations. Nobody liked a copper, at least not the kind of copper she’d been; she hadn’t been in the business of giving school talks on road safety or directing tourists to the monorail for a long, long time. But she felt guilty. Impossible as the deal was, she’d become the sticking point.
Bari waited for the doors to close and resumed the meeting.
“I’m sorry this has turned ugly,” he said. “But you’re aware of the conflicting interests here, and at least we know what the F
EU’s really after.”
“We are,” said Shan, cutting off any discussion of why she was such a point of contention. “Let’s discuss the marines.”
“The immigration department will process them, no delays. After that, they’re eligible to enlist in our defense forces. I’m sure we’d welcome uniquely experienced special forces troops.” Nairn looked at Ade, not realizing yet that the deal didn’t include him. “We’d like to put that straight as far as we can, because we committed ourselves as a nation to accepting your help. We’re not proud of Earth’s involvement in destabilizing your system, even if we had no hand in it.”
Esganikan turned to Bari. “Will you still feel that positive when we have to deal with the FEU’s intransigence, and you’re seen as acting as our military base?”
“I’m a pragmatist,” Bari said. “We’re already seen as that, and we need your goodwill infinitely more than we need theirs. The problem with superpowers is that they eventually alienate so many other countries that they find themselves in a world of enemies, and they collapse. Every empire dies in the end. You won’t find the rest of the world piling in to condemn us or helping the FEU.”
“Is that an indication that I can remove the warships?”
Bari kept looking at Shan. But this part wasn’t her business, and she didn’t join in. “I assume you could.”
“If an attack is likely, it’s simpler to remove the source than to maintain a defense shield across an entire country.” Esganikan seemed to be sliding into a defense pact again. “Which can be done, but it may take many weeks to create the infrastructure here.”
“Source…” said Bari. “Do you mean the fleet, or the FEU?”
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