by Patty Jansen
Damn, Ezhya.
If he lost his position, I had no illusion that Taysha would continue to employ me. In any case, on the off-chance that he did, I didn’t want to work for him. If this happened, the claim would go to the assembly unprepared and all smaller entities that wanted to see the power of Asto diminished would argue in favour. The Coldi would lose the claim and would be legally homeless. Asto belonged to the Coldi as much as it belonged to the Aghyrians. The Coldi were not going to give any concessions if forced upon them by the gamra assembly. Asto might boycott gamra. They might develop their own Exchange. There might be armed conflict. Heavens, they had the striking power, up there in that frightening orbiting station.
“So,” she said. “What do you think, foreigner?”
“I think you have valuable points to add to the citizenship issue.”
She looked at me in a puzzled, Is that so? kind of way.
Thanks to their claim, my job was a big mess and I would have to struggle to get as much as possible done before the sitting, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that I didn’t trust Federza and that this was the main reason I wanted her at the table.
Then she said, “So, what do you want from us?”
“I need your help. I want you in Barresh when the claim comes up in the assembly. I want you to be well-prepared—”
“We are not making deals with those so-called representatives.”
I bit down a snippy remark. “I’m not asking you to, until you’ve heard their arguments.”
She gave me a suspicious look.
“But in order for you to even make it to Barresh, in order for me to do anything for you, we need to make sure that Ezhya remains in power.”
“What do you think you are, playing kingmaker?” Nayu asked. “What is your interest in this affair? Are we under a foreign takeover scheme?”
“I do not wish to be involved in internal affairs of the Asto leadership.”
Someone laughed.
The sound came from the other end of the room, and it was Natanu. Several people gasped with the rudeness of it.
Nicha gave me a sharp look. Thayu, too. It was a look of the kind that said, Are you going to put up with that?
I rose, and the weakness that I’d sustained when I collapsed chose that moment to return. My legs felt like they would give way under me. I held the back of the chair. It was one of those moments I was sailing solo. I didn’t have the support of a handy instinct that told me what to do.
Natanu remained seated. That was a good sign, or was it?
My heart was pounding so much that it gave me a sudden headache.
“Maybe I am already too far involved not to have any influence, but whatever influence I have will be used to support Ezhya. I want all of you who decide to help me get back to either support my position or leave. Whatever is going on in the Inner Circle, we need to sort it out, get back in there and fix it. If the Exchange is coming back soon, Ezhya will be back soon, too. We want the situation to be stable. All of you depend on Ezhya’s rule to survive, because if we leave it up to Taysha, he’d send his troops in here to solve the problem. Not peacefully.”
I met Natanu’s eyes. She said nothing.
Nayu said, “And if we helped you, what would that mean for us?”
I turned to her. “I’m going to be straight with you.”
“Good. I like straight.”
“If you’re after money, I have none. If you’re after favours from my home world, I can’t give you any of those, either. If you’re wanting to bargain with me for votes or a voice at gamra, you have the wrong person.”
Her face was impassive, but she paused as if re-thinking her options. Had she expected me to ask for money?
She said, “We saved you and your party.”
“Yes, and for that, I thank you. I don’t think it should go unrewarded. I’m happy to listen to your concerns and raise them when the opportunity arises. I want there to be a solution that both Aghyrians and Coldi can be happy with.”
More silence.
Then one of the zeyshi at the far end of the table said, “That bully has done us no good.”
Someone else hissed, and Natanu rose. Her chair fell backwards. “He has allowed your children to attend Eighth Circle schools, hasn’t he? He has allowed you to come into Eighth Circle to buy your supplies and sell your services, no matter that some of them are illegal—”
The original zeyshi speaker also rose.
I called out, “Stop it. If you want to fight, you can do that outside and after this meeting has finished.”
To my surprise, Natanu sat back down. I nodded to her and hoped she would see it as a sign of appreciation. Whatever she felt towards me, I needed her support if she was still loyal to Ezhya.
Nayu said, “So then, what are you planning to do for us?”
“What I said: I am a diplomat for gamra. I will help you present your case. I will assist you with legal advice and make sure that the debate has the fairest possible outcome—”
The belligerent man at the end of the table said, “We can defend ourselves. No need for foreigners—”
Sadet snapped at him. “Shut up, Nera. These bureaucrats build labyrinths so complex you have no idea. I know what you all think of the group that claims to represent us in Barresh. Fops, soft rich boys with over-inflated heads. But. That takes away nothing from the fact that those fops know how to navigate the bureaucracy, and we don’t. What worries me is why would this man, self-proclaimed delegate and peace maker, help us. We don’t know who he is. He’s not Coldi. He doesn’t look Aghyrian.”
“He does, a little bit,” someone at the end of the table said in a low voice.
Sadet glared the man into silence.
“My world is a very early Aghyrian settlement. I don’t know if that has any bearing on my plea. I’m here because gamra pays me to do this job.” Funded primary by Ezhya, but that aside. “They wanted someone in the position who was neither Coldi nor Aghyrian. You, zeyshi and Aghyrians, do not want the Coldi to be hostile. You depend on them to help develop, make and buy your technology. Without them, you’d be nothing and none of the life you’ve made for yourself in here would be possible—”
“We built it all ourselves.”
“Who made the materials? Who mined the ore, who made the sheets of metal, who formed the glass, who grew your food?”
Silence.
“You are too few to survive on your own, even if you could live at the surface. The Coldi have no particular interest in driving you away—”
Nayu said, her eyes burning, “What do you know about it?”
“Enough to have spoken to Ezhya about this. He does not want you to be driven away. He does not want conflict. His interest is in improving gamra ’s view of Asto while keeping the peace.”
“You believe him?”
“Yes, I do.”
The silence around the table indicated that many here did not.
A strong voice came from the end of the table. “This delegate may be a stubborn idiot, but in this he speaks true.”
Gee, thanks, Natanu.
“So this is your reason why you want our support in this crazy expedition?” Nayu now looked at me. “To keep Ezhya in power?”
“It is. Because we’ll all be better off than under Taysha.”
“And what do you get out of it?”
“Nothing, in your terms. No money or favours.”
“That’s stupid,” Nayu said. “I don’t believe that.”
“Stupid as it sounds, it is also true.” Natanu again.
Everyone stared at me, wide-eyed.
; I said, “If it is any help in letting you understand, Ezhya pays for my job. Without him, I’d have—” to return to my home world. No, that would never fly as a reason. Returning was meant to be good. “. . . I’d have no work at all. Why my home world doesn’t support me financially is another story, but they don’t.” I really didn’t want to go into Earth politics and why gamra was seen as insignificant there.
Nayu snorted. “You got a clan?”
I shook my head.
Veyada said, “Domiri. Unconfirmed.”
She nodded. “He’s got the bluntness of one.”
I cringed. This was going much faster than I anticipated. I didn’t know if accepting clan designation would be a good thing. I was meant to be impartial. It might upset some of the very people I was set to speak for. Yet, if I didn’t get out of here, nothing would make a difference. If a clan designation was going to help me, then I would have to accept that. Maintaining the status quo was not a neutral position.
I rose. “So, this is my plan, stupid as it may seem to you. I want to go back into the Inner Circle and do whatever I can to stop Taysha taking over. We can isolate a section of the building with the hub—”
“Without assuming control of it?” Nayu sounded incredulous.
“Yes, exactly. Taysha is a vindictive man who will not further the cause of Asto at gamra or anywhere else in the settled worlds. He is unreasonable and makes unreasonable demands on me and on his people. He is—”
“This will help.” Veyada tossed a card into the middle of the table.
Damn. He’d somehow found time to write out the text of the damn writ that I—damn it—didn’t want anything to do with.
Nayu picked it up, read it and handed it to Sadet. She read it and handed it to the person next to her, and so on until it reached Natanu.
She nodded and put it on the table. “Overdue,” she said. “You speak true about Taysha. Kill him.”
“Yeah,” Nayu said and then met my eyes. “For someone claiming not to want to be involved in Coldi society, you know how get to the point of it.”
I didn’t know how this was meant. Not kindly, I think. And they still didn’t get that I wanted no deaths.
“I am asking for help, because I cannot do this alone. I need a means of getting into the Inner Circle. I need—” People with guns who can shoot well. “. . . technical specialists.” How was that for a euphemism?
“We’re with you. You know that,” Nicha said.
“And us,” Sheydu said.
Natanu only said, “Yes.” That agreement to help would cover her entire association, although I was unsure if Veyada and Sheydu were still part of that. The ground was shifting while I stood on it.
“It will be interesting,” Nayu said, and I guessed that was her way of agreeing to take part. She chuckled. “Yeah, let’s do that. Storm the hub, set up a perimeter and see who is strong enough to resist the temptation to take over.”
Damn, the sarcasm oozed from her words.
I looked at Thayu, and couldn’t gauge her thoughts from the expression on her face. I wanted my feeder. I’d fought against wearing the damn thing many times, but now I wanted it.
Nayu said, “Meanwhile, let us offer you a place to rest. We will need until tomorrow to organise appropriate people to come with us on this crazy scheme.”
Now a flicker of annoyance hovered in Thayu’s expression. She eyed Nicha. He frowned and did one of the brother-sister face twitches. I couldn’t guess the meaning of this particular one.
Chapter 19
* * *
A COUPLE of zeyshi led us out of the room through a warren of worn and disused ancient passages until we came to a corridor where somebody had put a maroon runner across the uneven cobbles of the stone floor. Against the left wall stood the narrow table one normally found in an influential family’s apartment. The arrangement on it consisted of a couple of rough rocks and a small fish-bowl-like glass vase with something inside. Arrangements usually included large vases with extravagant dried flowers or tree branches. This one was very modest in comparison. The small fish bowl contained the empty husk of a worm. These creatures lived in the underground streams and made cocoons spun together from grains of sand. They were delicate, tube-like structures, discarded by the creatures when their bodies outgrew the cocoon.
I couldn’t begin to guess what the arrangement meant, but I had a vague memory that the worm husk had a significant meaning.
A couple of domestic staff—all demure and many quite old— stood alongside the carpet runner. It was all very weird, as if they had tried to recreate a small part of the Inner Circle down here.
Our guide stopped.
“This will be your room for however long you need it.”
One of the servants opened the door to a dank room off the main passage. A waft of humid and musty air spilled out.
Inside the L-shaped room were several hard-looking bunks, a threadbare carpet on the floor and a makeshift cupboard constructed of bent and warped shelves hidden by a piece of cloth.
Raanu climbed on top of the closest bunk to the right of the door and jumped around on the mattress, making the bunk shake.
“Can I sleep in this bed? Please, please?”
Thayu said, “You can have whatever bed you like, pebble. But please do remember that we’re not here as friends, and you need to be quiet and respectful.”
Raanu rolled around on the mattress, laughing.
Sheydu glared at her.
I quickly selected the bunk underneath Raanu, because we couldn’t have any of the guards sleep there. They might lose their temper with her. Did they all dislike children so much?
Thayu and Nicha shared the bunk on the other side of the door and Veyada and Sheydu, Natanu and the others took the bunks at the far end of the room.
“Wow, great luxury,” I said and turned to Thayu, remembering what she’d just said to Raanu. “Do you think we’re in danger here?”
“Not immediately,” Nicha said. “But I don’t know about the zeyshi. I can’t judge what their promises are worth. The may use our attempt to get into the Inner Circle as a way to further their own aims.”
I spread my hands. “Further their own aims? That’s what almost everyone else has been doing since I got here. Let them join the queue.”
“I don’t know these people. I don’t sense what they want.”
“My guess: money. Or power.” Damn, I was feeling angry, irritated, blunt.
“I don’t trust any of them either,” Thayu said softly, coming to stand next to me. She glanced at the stone ceiling. There was no knowing if listening equipment was hidden up there, as there would be in all such apartments in Barresh.
I made an Indrahui hand signal I’d learned from Evi and Telaris: Don’t trust anyone.
She nodded, casting a glance at the other end of the room, where the guards were stretching out on their beds. Veyada and Sheydu sat next to each other on a bottom bunk, looking at a screen.
Damn, the way they sat there reminded me of Evi and Telaris. How I longed for my comfortable home. The fear that I would never see them again clawed at me.
* * *
We decided that it was unlikely that anything would happen for a few hours, until “certain people” could be notified. Whoever these people were, none of us liked it much.
Natanu mentioned some names, to which Thayu retorted that half of those people were known to be dead and that she should stop perpetuating rumours and talking people into legends who were just common criminals.
“And you know so much about these people,” Natanu sneered.
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Is that why you dra
gged us into this fucking warren? Are any of them your bed-mates?”
I rose from the bed and crossed the room in a few steps. “Will you stop talking to my wife like that?”
Lying on her back on the top bunk, Natanu regarded me with an emotionless look over the top of her legs, crossed at the ankles.
“Cory,” Nicha said behind me, his tone full of warning.
“No, Nicha, I’ll not have this sniping in our group. I understand that there are difficulties with associations—”
“Denaryi,” Natanu said. Total chaos.
She met my eyes in an intense look.
I spread my hands, out of my depth. “At least try to get along.”
That remark was only greeted with deep silence. Sheydu and Veyada didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. Raanu lay on her stomach on the top bunk, watching with wide eyes. No doubt she understood what was going on much more than I did. And I should shut up before someone killed me.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I returned to my bunk, hot, frustrated, smelly.
And I still couldn’t talk freely to Thayu and Nicha. I asked if there was an opportunity to have a bath. Nicha went out. He said apparently there was a bathroom across the hall, but it was occupied.
I had lost all track of time, but Nicha said it was late afternoon, and we should probably get some rest.
I didn’t feel like resting. My mind was racing. I wanted to get out of here. In any case, I didn’t feel tiredness of the kind that makes you sleep. My bones and muscles ached and that meal I’d eaten sat like a stone in my stomach.
While all this was going on, Raanu had fallen asleep, with one arm hanging down from the top bunk. I lay on my back, watching her hand twitch. Thayu got up and covered her with a blanket. I don’t know if she thought that I was asleep, but I caught her giving Raanu a smile that made me choke up inside. There was no doubt about it: she wanted a child, and she would be an excellent mother. Thayu hid her desires well, but every now and then she would lift a little veil of how much it hurt her to have left her son in the care of Taysha’s brother.
