Proof, gel. Niall’s words rattled in her head. The haystack needle. The one-in-a-billion shot. If I had more time… She told herself that, even as she knew. Even as she feared.
…the bottom of Rauta Shèràa harbor…
“But that’s too good for her.” Jani sat in a lounger, and waited for that mildest of bumps that would tell her the Madelaine had docked at Rauta Shèràa Station.
She yawned for the first time in days. She had managed to sleep, even as the dreams came. Convinced herself that any night during which she didn’t die counted as a good one, and so managed to find some rest about half the time. Sent message central transmit communications to Dieter at Commerce expense, and viewed the replies until she could recite them by heart. A few more fights…brought in Dathim’s friends…the training is going much as you’d expect. Dieter’s skills at saying everything and nothing with the same words came into play repeatedly. She tried to read the truth in his eyes, in the way he’d lower his head as he spoke, as though exhausted. Trying to deduce, even as she dreaded what she might learn.
Nothing in the newssheets, at least. No unrest in Karistos. Some problems in Meteora, its smaller sister city to the south, but those proved to be related to the local ComPol’s mishandling of a political corruption investigation, not the aftershocks related to Tsecha’s death.
It’s like reading tea leaves. Trying to divine truth over great distance with little concrete information. To compensate, the imagination ran roughshod, dragged the rest of the mind to places it didn’t want to go—
“Jani?”
She flinched. Slumped and swore at the ceiling, her heart pounding. Dammit, Niall. She touched her ear, activating the bug. “What do you want?”
“Could you please come to the bridge.” Not a question, but a veiled command, delivered in a voice gone tight enough to string a violin.
Jani slapped the door pad. The panel opened to reveal a vision in dress desertweights, brimmed lid tucked beneath his arm.
“There have been developments.” Lucien stepped to one side, eyes fixed straight ahead, and waited for her to precede him down the corridor.
“The station stopped all shuttle flights at midnight, Rauta Shèràa time.” Niall hesitated, then shook his head as the feed from his ear bug claimed his attention.
Jani heard the same string of chatter, saw from the distant look in Lucien’s eyes that he received it as well.
Felt the cold sweat bloom and trickle.
“An update for we the deaf would be nice,” Scriabin snapped. He wore tunic and trousers in Commerce dark green, an unfortunate contrast to his reddening face.
“Tsecha’s welcoming committee is currently estimated at a quarter million inside the station proper.” Niall paused again. “Could be three hundred thousand. The ones who couldn’t make it here are lining the Rauta Shèràa streets. Estimates there have topped the two million mark, but I understand that number is swelling as I speak.” Another of his aides whispered something in his open ear, and his expression darkened. “Two point five million, and still climbing.”
“They came to see him home.” Jani smiled, felt a swell of pride nudge aside the fear. “Even though Cèel tried to marginalize him. Even though Temple declared him anathema and tore his writings to shreds.”
“I wouldn’t read too much into it.” Ulanova entered the bridge, a flicker of black-garbed flame, her usual uniform of ministry burgundy set aside in deference to idomeni religious protocols. “Idomeni see things as they are. Whether for or against Tsecha, they would turn out, simply to watch.” She surveyed the narrow, instrument-lined room, gaze sliding past Jani and pausing on Lucien before settling on her nephew. “The embassy has sent an escort to clear our way through the mess, surely? There’s no need for us to remain on board for hours to come.”
“I want to see it.” Jani turned to the bridge’s small monitor, which currently showed a view of the gangway, populated by a quartet of embassy security guards. “Can we see it on the port?” She nodded toward the semicircle of clear metalloceramic that served as the bridge’s window.
“Why can’t we watch in person?”
Everyone turned to find Val standing in the entryway.
“It’s been ages since I passed through the place, but there have to be areas at one end of the concourse or the other where we can stand and not get in anyone’s way.” He glanced at Jani, looking away before she could grin, the eternal coconspirator.
“I would like to watch as well.” Scriabin fielded his aunt’s glare. “It’s history, Tyotya. I want to be able to tell my children that I saw it firsthand.”
“We are in the human section of the concourse.” Niall shot a glare at Val that should have dropped him on the spot. “We would have to move to the outlet in the idomeni section, along with all those poor souls who have flown up here for the sole purpose of protecting you. I don’t believe that standing in full view of a small city’s worth of idomeni is the best course of action for a group of humans—” He redirected his glower at Jani. “—or one hybrid in particular to take, given the circumstances and the prevailing mood.”
Ulanova favored Niall with one of the few smiles she’d allowed over the course of the voyage. “I agree, Colonel. I believe—”
“I’d like to watch, too.” John stepped inside, casting an edgy glance in Jani’s direction before looking away. He wore her favorite daysuit, the pale blue-grey that matched his eyes. “If we’re just going to stare at a display, well, we could’ve done that in Thalassa.”
“Yes.” Niall fit three weeks of ramping tension into a single word. “You could have.”
“You’re outvoted, Niall.” Jani heard the twitter in her ear, felt her heart skip. Three hundred fifty thousand.
“No. I’m in charge of security. My vote trumps everyone’s.” Niall muttered a curse as the same number fed into his ear. “Look, I liked him, too. But we could be looking at a riot here.”
“I’ll hide behind someone.” Jani read Niall’s eyes, the pleading and the question. Are you that eager to walk out there? To take that first step? No, she wasn’t. But what choice did she have? “Let’s go.”
Niall led them to the exit, muttering all the while, every angered inflection broadcast into Jani’s ear. “I didn’t know you knew those words,” she whispered, and watched his face flare.
Then Lucien squirted ahead while Niall moved behind. Shortcut code streamed into Jani’s ear, names and locations and positions and conditions, so quickly that she couldn’t identify the individual words. The inner door slid aside, then the outer door, and with as much formality as a stroll down the Thalassan beach, they walked out onto the gangway.
CHAPTER 26
“My God.” John stopped at the point where the gangway opened out onto the human concourse.
“Nothing’s changed.” Val drew up beside him. “Not a thing.”
Jani wiped her hands on her trousers as the shiver of nerves and fear and anticipation washed over. Glanced at Niall to find him fixed in place, as shaken as the rest of them.
“Damned place always was a beauty.” He spoke softly, as though to himself, before switching back to security jargon.
“Yes.” Jani nodded. Compared to the baroque excesses of Elyas and the jury-rigged clutter of Guernsey, Rauta Shèràa Station was as airy and elegant a public thoroughfare as ever existed. Sand-colored walls curved upward, carved at the peak to form a lattice like interlocking fingers from which skeletal metal chandeliers hung at regular intervals. The walls themselves had been equipped with illumination insets that provided most of the lighting, and made the space glow like a windowed room on a sunny day. In niches along the walls came the only shots of color, arabesque panels in green, blue, and worked metal.
Lucien’s soft French crept into Jani’s ear, as though he lay beside her in bed. “It’s like a cathedral without the pews or the altar. No snack kiosks. No shops. No holos of ministers or the celebrity of the moment.”
“You’ve never been
here?”
“No.”
“It affects newcomers that way.” And the not-so-newcomers, as well.
They stepped out as one and started down the causeway. Lucien remained in front, Niall to the rear. “—like herding kiddies through the dinosaur exhibit—” Jani picked out his voice amid the stream. “Keep ’em moving and don’t let them touch anything.”
Few humanish populated the place, since without the shops and eateries, there were no magnets, no reasons to hang around. They soon reached the end, which abutted an even larger cathedral that was the main concourse, near the spot where Tsecha’s reliquary would emerge. Val glanced at his timepiece, then stood on tiptoe and checked out the crowd. “Can’t we move out a little more?”
“Perhaps you can.” John shook his head. “I’ll have to make do with the sidelines. Hybrids have no rank here. I crouch near the front, I’ll get hammered for commanding status I don’t have. It only looks like a scrum out there. There’s strict organization according to skein, sect, and degree of outcast.”
“Have you ever noticed that idomeni…smell?” Lucien sniffed, then grimaced. “I never noticed it before. It’s weird. Faint, but highly annoying. Sickly sweet, like dead flowers.” He eyed Jani sidelong. “We won’t discuss the heat. We’re lucky that cooling cells in desertweights are standard now.”
“I don’t recall inquiring after your comfort.” Jani tensed as a murmur rippled through the concourse, all heads turning toward the far end.
Val stepped over to them. “I just overheard Niall talking to one of his staff. Meva has just disembarked.” He looked crisp and cool despite the unhumanish heat, as did his pale yellow daysuit, which also must have come equipped with cooling cells, given his lack of apparent discomfort. He remained at Jani’s elbow and ignored Lucien, who for his part didn’t seem to notice.
Jani edged as far out into the concourse as she dared. The place was about two hundred meters long, and filled from wall to wall with idomeni but for a narrow aisle that cut through their center. She looked behind her, saw Scriabin standing a few meters back. Ulanova leaned on his arm, as fixed on the unfurling scene as any of them.
Jani turned back toward the concourse just as something in the air…changed. She felt the charge, the tension. The priest has come home. Her eyes filled, tears spilling even as she tried to blink them away.
After a few moments a familiar figure became visible through the crowd. Meva, dressed as neatly and conservatively as Jani had ever seen in pale tan trousers, shirt, and propitiator’s overrobe. Her waist-length hair, which she normally wore in a messy knot, had been braided and looped into a breeder’s fringe as weighty as the wigs of ancient Egyptian figures. She walked slowly, her back straight as a plumb line, her head high. She’d encounter Haárin first, some dressed in jewel tones, others in palest earths and pastels. Farther along, she’d meet the bornsects who had come to pay their respects, but here, she met those whom Tsecha had led, those whom he had instructed, inspired. If she spotted Jani, she gave no sign, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead as she passed by and continued down the concourse.
“How can so many beings stay so damned quiet?” Niall, his voice in Jani’s ear as hushed as a child’s.
Jani watched Meva until another change in the air caused her to look back from whence the female had come. At first she saw nothing. Then, through the crowd, it became visible, a box of plain, polished wood that floated through the air, a meter or so above the floor.
“You never mentioned pallbearers, did you, gel?” Niall’s voice again. Questioning child.
“No, I didn’t.” Jani watched as the reliquary veered toward the middle of the concourse as though guided by an invisible hand, then continued its haunting progression. As it passed the midway point, one of the Haárin standing at the front of the crowd raised both arms above her head in a posture of abject supplication. A few rows behind, another Haárin raised his arms.
Then another.
Another.
Finally, the rest of the idomeni, Haárin and bornsect, raised their arms in one upward sweep, the whisper of cloth the only sound as arms brushed and sleeves fell back, revealing traceworks of challenge scars. They stood, still and silent, as the reliquary continued on its way, a shadowed square, dark and dead amid the lightness and life.
Jani looked at John to find him standing somber, arms at his sides. He eyed her sidelong, his face reflecting the same question she asked herself. What do we do, except watch? How do we show how we felt?
John nodded. Then, moving in unison, they straightened, lifting their arms above their heads as the idomeni had. Val stared. Lucien simply watched.
“Dammit—you’re not supposed to attract attention. You’re supposed to—” Niall’s voice cut off as Jani plucked the bug from her ear and shoved it in her pocket, then raised her arm again. A few Haárin glanced in her direction, but most watched the reliquary until it vanished from view. Then they slowly lowered their arms.
Jani lowered her arms as well, and waited for the crowd to disperse, to follow the reliquary, to walk to their shuttles.
But they did none of those things. Instead, they remained where they stood, and looked once more toward the far end of the concourse. Toward her.
The silence weighed, heavy as a grieving heart. The idomeni stood still, and quiet, and waited.
“You took it out, didn’t you?”
Jani turned to find Niall at her shoulder.
He touched his ear, then looked past her toward the assembled. “Fucking hell. Not a one has budged.” He glared at Jani. “Dammit.”
“You must get us out of here, Colonel.” No more smiles as Ulanova shook off Scriabin’s restraining hand and dogged Niall’s elbow. “We’ll be overrun.”
“They’re waiting for you.” John’s voice, quiet as shadow.
Jani looked him in the eye for the first time since they had departed Guernsey. Felt his surprise. His uncertainty. “I know.”
Niall pointed to his ear bug. “Station Haárin are asking whether you intend to join the procession. The place is at a standstill and they have incoming craft that may need to be diverted if things don’t shake loose soon.”
“If she walks out there now, she declares herself ní Tsecha Egri’s successor.” Ulanova raised her own supplicant hand to the heavens, then let it fall. “In spite of her origins. In spite of the fact that she possesses no standing within Temple or the Haárin hierarchy. That would be a supreme display of arrogance, even for her.”
Scriabin, silent to that point, walked over to Jani. “They could attack you. If they did, we might not be able to get to you in time.”
“I don’t think they’d do that.” Jani tugged at the front of her shirt, then passed a straightening hand over it. “I think they’re just waiting for me to make up my mind.”
“So you are forced by circumstance to declare yourself Tsecha’s successor,” Ulanova bit out. “How convenient for you.”
Jani took the ear bug from her pocket and reinserted it. “If anyone challenged me, I’d have to fight.” She looked at Niall. “We didn’t work this out ahead of time, but I’d like you to be my second if that happens.”
Niall’s eyes softened despite his irritation. “You know my answer, gel. What would I have to do?”
“Guard the edge of the circle to make sure I don’t step outside it. Declare the challenge at an end if I’m too injured to continue.”
Niall nodded. Swallowed hard. “We’ll be close around you. We do have Haárin security in the crowd. Overhead scan. Interference patterning.”
“Got anything that will stop a half-meter short sword?” Jani patted his arm. “It will be their call. How they perceive me, whether as Tsecha’s suborn or…something else.” She turned, and walked toward the concourse. Sensed a different sort of ripple radiate through the crowd as she approached, one that produced the occasional whitecap.
Jani tried to walk normally, even as the soles of her feet tingled and her knees threatened to buc
kle. She caught a whiff of the aroma Lucien described, the flower-sweat of idomeni packed shoulder-to-shoulder as far as her eye could see. Felt their heat as she walked the narrow gantlet, the full-face stares of the bolder Haárin.
“Keep going, gel. I’ve got your back. You’re twenty meters in.”
One hundred eighty to go. A lifetime in a few minutes. Jani imagined Tsecha’s reliquary in front of her, leading the way. Touched the stones of her rings, drew strength from the chill hardness. Met the eyes of an elder female who bared her teeth, and bared her own in return. Slowed as an Haárin male stepped out of the crowd and strode toward her. Stopped as he reached beneath his overrobe and pulled out a blade as long as his forearm and brought it around in a long, slow arc.
Jani continued forward, reached out, gripped his wrist with her left hand, the hilt of the blade in her right, and twisted. Held the freed blade above her head—
“Let me the hell go!”
—then turned to find Niall standing stricken a few strides to the rear, a station Haárin hanging onto his arm. “I’m fine, Niall.” Then she turned back to the male and handed him back his blade as the crowd surged forward and closed in behind her, bearing her along like a wave.
“What the hell was that?” Niall’s voice rang in her head, as shaken as ever she’d heard it. “What in bloody hell—”
Lucien’s voice broke in. “I think it may have been the Haárin equivalent of asking for an autograph.”
“You think so?” Niall’s sneer could have curdled milk. “Well, fuck that—”
Jani plucked the bug from her ear again. The crowd altered the farther along she walked, the brightly colored garb of the more militant Haárin giving way to the subdued coloration of the conservatives.
Endgame Page 28
