Endgame

by Kristine Smith

  Niall laughed, a single, humorless jerk of his shoulders. “I really shouldn’t bother to eat decent food until after we pull out of here.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and continued to work the spent ’stick. “But the offices are open at all hours now, thanks to you. Always a bathroom handy. A can to kneel before.”

  Jani studied his profile, details muted by the half-light. Sharp nose and line of jaw, set off by his brimmed lid. He could take it off. Yes, they were outdoors, but they were seated, and, technically at least, having a conversation. But he won’t do it. He was an officer in the Commonwealth Service, with a tradition to uphold. Standards to maintain. An ideal to live up to.

  “Go ahead and say it.” Niall glanced at her, then faced front once more. “When you’re this quiet for this long, I can just about hear the hum of machinery.”

  “That’s the animandroid.” Jani raised her left arm, then let it fall. Twitched her left leg. “Bad joke.”

  “You’re allowed, gel.” Niall sighed. “After the day you’ve had, you’re allowed a lot.”

  Jani pondered for a time. Then she tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to his spent ’stick. “Got any extras?”

  Niall stared. “Parini will bloody kill me.”

  “If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have anything to do around here but dance and pick up unsuspecting lieutenants.” Jani held out her hand. “C’mon.”

  Niall scrabbled into his trouser pocket and pulled out his case. “When was the last time you smoked?”

  “Years.” Jani took a ’stick, crunched the tip, then paused to wipe a tiny fleck of the bulb material from her tongue. “I don’t remember—can you swallow this stuff?”

  “It’s safe.” Niall grinned as he pulled out one for himself and bit down. “Years ago, if the pieces were big enough, we’d have spitting contests.” He shook his head. “I’ve said it before, gel. Just when I think you can’t surprise me anymore.”

  “Drinking’s a waste of time. I want to see if nicotine still has any effect.”

  “First Doc, then you.” Niall paused to take a deep drag, then blew out a quartet of rings. “Gonna work on Meva next.”

  Jani eyed the ’stick warily, then took a drag. Her throat closed as the fragrant smoke flowed into her mouth, and she coughed. She bent double to take the pressure off her chest. Her eyes teared.

  “Jesus wept—don’t try to pull like me! I’ve been at it since the days o’ me youth.” Niall took the ’stick from her and tapped her between her shoulder blades until she quieted. “Baby puffs, until you work up to it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What I’m here for.”

  Jani took back the ’stick and tried again. The merest sampling. “Taste’s a little like the way vrel blossom smells.” She dabbed her eyes with her sleeve, then stilled and watched the smoke stream upward until the night breeze took hold and scattered it. “If you had to do it again, now, how would you secure them?”

  Niall sat back, one arm crossed over his stomach, the other straight, the ’stick dangling from his hand. “I’d have demanded more people. One guard per, and two to back them up in case friends decided to come to the rescue.” His eyes narrowed as he considered the problem. “Armored skimvan right here near the building. None of this escorting through the base shit.” Pause to inhale. “If I could coax a medico to come along, I’d just drug ’em and stack them in the van. Wouldn’t even give them the chance to see one another, to get excited.”

  Jani nodded. “And if you had been put in that situation a year or two earlier?” She waited for him to speak, and knew it would be some time before he did. Because he knows the answer. “I think you’d have shot them without a second thought.” She took another puff, and tasted the vrel blossom. “You were once a remorseless bastard, Niall Pierce, untempered by finer feeling or much of a moral sense. It wasn’t that you lacked those things. They were there, and always had been. They were just…dormant. You lived a life in which you couldn’t afford them, so you set them aside.” She lowered her voice as a brace of file-laden clerks trotted past. “Then you met Mako, and somehow he instilled in you the notion that there was still a modicum of honor left to be mined from that calloused orphan heart. You learned that you could be part of something bigger than yourself, and that realization hit you like a sockful of rocks. All those sensibilities that you’d set aside awakened and roiled to the surface.”

  Niall sat still, eyes fixed straight ahead. Breathing a little quick, a little shallow. Might have been nicotine. Or memory.

  Jani kept her voice level, soft. “The problem is, you need tools to deal with bigger than yourself, and you hadn’t acquired them yet. So, when the shit hit the fan, you fell back on the bastard because that was still your default. It was the man you still were, to some extent. But then, as time passed, you changed. You became a better man, the man you wish you had been twenty years before.” Her throat tightened, and she blamed the smoke. “One of the best I’ve ever known. But I’ve told you that before.” She watched a wad of paper skitter down the walkway, coaxed by the breeze. “The bill’s been paid, Niall, with hard-earned coin. Give yourself a break.”

  For a time it seemed as though he hadn’t heard. Then came the voice, from twenty years away. “They keep me posted, like old friends. I hear Ebben scream like she did when she saw the others die and realized she was next. I see the look on her face when I aimed the long-range at her. I feel the pounding of my heart, the certainty that if I let her get away, she’d flee to her friends, save herself by giving Roshi and the rest of us away.” He doffed his lid, scratched his head, set it back on. “I relive it all as if it was yesterday.”

  “And you likely always will.” Jani pressed a hand to her mended stomach. No pain, only pressure, as through someone had placed a foot on her diaphragm and pressed down. “If you hadn’t changed, you wouldn’t see them. They’ll always be there to remind you of how far you’ve come.”

  Niall stared straight ahead, a still image captured in a moment of tension. Not a twitch, not even the flicker of an eyelid, broke the stasis.

  Then, after a few moments, movement, his nostrils narrowing as he snorted. “You really believe that?” He stood, straightening the line of his tunic with his free hand. “I’ve heard lines of bull from the psychs before, but I think you just won the prize.” He edged away from her, one slow step after another, toward the charge-station array. “What’s your default?”

  Jani stood and walked after him, slowing every so often as her heart skipped. “There’s a reason why we’re friends.”

  “You? A remorseless bastard?” Niall glanced back at her, then shook his head. “You were born with the tools. If Ebben and the others had bolted on you, you’d never have—” He stopped in front of the charge-stations, reduced to shadowed shape by the darkness. “You never panicked in your life.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’d have told me. Sometime, during one of our bull sessions, you’d have dropped a hint.” Niall touched the corner of one of the stations, then pulled back as though it burned. “What do you see, now that you’re here? What do you remember?” His voice came soft, but there was an undercurrent. A plea for parity, for a weakness she could share.

  Jani sniffed the Rauta Shèràa night air, tinged with dampness and city smells. Not baked. Not light. Not as clean as the desert. “It’s like in the dreams. The openings to the Laumrau tents close like a self-sealing envelope, and the flaps make a ripping sound if you yank them apart too quickly. The tent material itself looks flimsy, like rotted silk, but it’s stronger than it looks.” She stared down at the ’stick in her hand, dose ring still indicating three-quarters full. Felt a tap on her arm, saw Niall’s extended hand, and passed it off with a grateful nod. “When I reached the first tent, I tried shooting through it. But it was coated with barrier—don’t ask me why I didn’t assume it would be coated with barrier, I just didn’t—and the charge dissipated across the surface.” She moved her feet. Kne
w she stood on cement, yet felt sand instead. Shifting sand. “I panicked then. I knew whoever was inside had heard the shooter. That those in the surrounding tents heard it as well.” Her heart tripped, and she blamed nicotine, the injury. “I had resigned myself to death when I walked down the dune toward the encampment, but part of me wasn’t ready to go. I grabbed the edge of the flap and yanked it back—” She tried to mime the motion until the grip of her incision stopped her. “—heard that ripping sound. A female sat at her altar table. She looked up when she heard me. Set down her fork. And just stared.” Her hand came up, fingers closing around a nonexistent weapon. “She never moved, not even when she saw the shooter.” She turned to Niall to find him watching her wide-eyed, ’stick stalled halfway to his mouth. “I know they heard me. They had to have—”

  Niall let his arm drop. “What?”

  “It was like fish in a barrel.” Jani felt sweat bead on her temple and brushed it away. “Why didn’t one of them try to stop me? There were twenty-six of them and one of me. They must have heard. They must have known what was going on. And rather than commit sacrilege by interrupting their sacrament, they remained in their tents, and let me slaughter them.” She walked to the nearest charge station and leaned against it. “I wonder sometimes whether they wanted to die. Whether the enormity of their sins had borne down upon them, and they decided en masse that death was better than going on as they were.”

  “Suicide by homicide?” Niall paced a tight circle. “I think that’s a stretch, but I’m human. We’ve a tradition of fighting to live.” His voice had lightened now that they’d moved on to her nightmare. “I think they froze. They didn’t expect a human to come into their camp and attack them, and when they heard it happening, they didn’t take it for what it was.” He snorted again. “Death by culture clash. The history pages are filled. I blame the bornsect mind-set. Damned lockstep thinking. If they’d had even one Dathim Naré in that encampment, you’d have been dead before you reached the first tent.” He spun on his heel to face her and shook a finger under her nose. “Don’t try to slap a coward label on yourself, Jani Kilian, because I won’t let you. If just one of them had woken the hell up and realized what was happening, you wouldn’t be standing here now questioning yourself. The potential for death was there.” He shook his head in disgust. “Fish in a barrel, my ass.”

  Jani smiled. “That’s our job, I guess. Prop up one another every so often. Shake some sense.”

  “You were here for me tonight. I’ll be there for you tomorrow.” Niall held his head high as he started again to pace, touching one of the stations each time he passed. Then he stopped and his shoulders sagged. “It won’t ever go away?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Ah, well.” Niall took a step closer. The light from a safety illumin fell across his face, revealing the greyness, the sheen of sweat. “Maybe it’s worth it, if only to watch you try to smoke.” He smiled. Walked to one of the charge-stations and leaned against it. “So what’s next for the team? Release the old bird’s soul at Temple? Allow him his rest?”

  “In a few days.” Jani leaned against another of the stations, savored the machine warmth. “Meva and I are planning something.”

  “Why does that phrase strike fear in my heart?” Niall looked around for a moment, then gestured to her. “Come on, gel. I’ll walk you back. Some of us need our sleep.”

  CHAPTER 35

  “They’ve been ferrying idomeni out there since the ceremony was announced early yesterday. Last estimates were upward of two million. Could be two and a half to three by the time we get out there. The logistics are staggering.” Niall took a swallow of coffee, then smacked his lips. “You’ve been taking lessons from Shroud. This stuff really could wake the dead.”

  “Flattery will get you a refill.” Val topped off Niall’s mug, then hovered over Jani, carafe at the ready. “What’s wrong with it?”

  Jani set down her still full cup. Breakfast in the kitchen of Val’s guesthouse had commenced a few minutes before, after hurried awakenings and conferencing with ministers and admirals general and quick showers. “Stomach’s a little knotty.” She jerked her chin at Niall. “He’s trying to scare me.”

  “Don’t get me hopes up, gel. It’ll go to me head and there’ll be no dealing with me.” Niall moved from caffeine to sugar and carbohydrates, spreading a slice of toast with marmalade, then folding it over and dunking it in his coffee. “They’ve also set up displays in Temple and major squares. Other cities. Worldskeinwide transmission. We won’t even talk about the Commonwealth networks.”

  “Good. Don’t.” Jani took a lemon wedge from a plate of garnishes and bit into it.

  Val stifled a yawn, then sat next to Jani and eyed her with professional calculation gone a bit bleary around the edges. “You know how John and I feel about this?”

  “I know.” Jani took up her fork and picked over her food, forcing down some fried meat, some scrambled eggs. Protein seemed the best bet, given what her day held in store. “But Meva and I talked about it. Then she discussed it with some of the propitiators she knew at Temple, and they concluded that while there’s no real precedent, it’s theologically sound.” She smashed an overcrisp rasher of bacon into bits, then set down her fork. “He and I talked about it once, for some reason I can’t remember. If I ever went back, what could I do in order to…restore balance?” She held out her right hand and studied her redstone ring. The one Tsecha had given her when she graduated the Academy. The one that hadn’t fit until she’d begun to hybridize and her fingers thinned.

  “We could’ve delayed this, you know.” Niall’s verve ebbed, replaced by his more usual coiled spring wariness. “I could’ve taken you out there beforehand, let you see the place. Get a sense of it.”

  “It wouldn’t have helped.” Jani pushed away from the table and stood, her propitiator’s robe falling around her knees, the red-slashed sleeves settling past her wrists. “I could visit it beforehand a hundred times, and it wouldn’t help.” She sniffed, smelled clear air and heat instead of coffee and toast, then looked down at Niall to find him studying her, eyes a little too shiny for comfort.

  “We’d better—” He looked away, cleared his throat. “We’ve got a long ride ahead of us. We’d better leave.” He picked up his brimmed lid from its resting place on the spare chair and put it on, squaring the angle as always by running his thumbs and forefingers along the edge of the brim. “I’ll wait by the skimmer.” He strode out the kitchen door without a backward glance, a rough-edged vision in tan and white.

  “He does get emotional, our Niall. Especially where you’re concerned.” Val took a last swallow of coffee, then pushed back his chair and rose with obvious reluctance. “I visited Knevçet Shèràa once. You were still in induced coma, and John and I weren’t sure—” He inhaled shakily. “I wanted to see the place for myself. I’d heard rumors enough, and I wanted to see.” As though in deference to the upcoming ceremony, he had donned a daysuit in dark cream, the jacket’s lapels a fair match for an overrobe’s shawl collar. “I couldn’t get within ten kilometers of the place. The Vynshà had taken over that area, and they’d installed perimeter patrols. A gate with armed sentries.”

  “Tsecha wasn’t sure when they razed the hospital. He didn’t think it happened until after he’d been put under house arrest, but no one would tell him anything and he could never find the records of the destruction.” Jani saw Tsecha in her mind’s eye, overrobe billowing as he paced around her and ranted over Temple perfidy. “He always felt that they should have kept it open, as a reminder.” She heard his voice in her head, the sibilant rise and fall, only to have it silenced when Val touched her arm.

  “Let’s go.” He linked his arm with hers and walked with her into the morning.

  “They’ll kill you if you go out there, Captain. You know they will.”

  “They’re at sacrament, Borgie. They don’t even have any guards posted.”

  “What are you going to do?”
<
br />   “Just go back inside. Wait until I return. Then we’ll go from there.”

  “No need for you to get out.” Niall steered the skimmer into the embassy drive. “We just need to join up with the ministerial cavalcade so that we all leave at the same time.” He tapped the dashboard input, then studied the display. “Then it’s on to the enclave—Feyó’s skimmer is waiting just inside the gate. It will pull in behind and follow us to the destination, of course. Protocol.” He drawled the word as though it were a particularly foul descriptor.

  “Knevçet Shèràa.” Jani caught his gaze in the rearview. “You can say it, Niall. It’s all right.”

  “I know that.” Niall reddened, as he did whenever he was caught being delicate. He then disembarked to talk to Ulanova’s driver, which left the vehicle unguarded.

  Jani turned to Val. “Do you think—” She was interrupted by a rap on the window, and lowered it.

  “Hello.” Lucien looked in, stepping back a little as soon as he spotted Val.

  Jani ignored Val’s mutter. “You driving, as well?”

  “Mako and Burkett. The cabin barrier will go up as soon as we set out, and I’ll be left with my own thoughts for company.” Lucien looked back toward the Service triple-length, near which the two men and various aides had already gathered. “I better go.” He reached in and took hold of Jani’s hand. “Bonne chance.” He brought it to his lips and kissed it hard, then trotted back to his post.

  “Some of us have all the luck.” Val sniffed. “I don’t hold grudges. Please don’t give it a second thought.”

  Jani surveyed the yard and spotted Scriabin standing by his own triple-length, talking to an aide. “I have some unfinished business to attend to.” She felt Val’s hand close over her own, a not so subtle attempt at restraint. “I’ll just be a minute.” She shook off his hold, pushing up the gullwing and exiting the skimmer.