by Patty Jansen
Noisier than the craft themselves were the giant turning platforms and the sirens that hooted before one of the levels was about to turn.
Coming down the gangplank amongst the flashing lights and screaming engines, we were met by Amarru herself, a stocky woman wearing unassuming maintenance overalls. She had cut her greying hair into a fashionable short hairdo resembling a shag pile carpet and wore glasses with pink frames.
It never ceased to amaze me how such a powerful woman could look so utterly like someone you’d just pass in the street without giving her a second thought. That type of behaviour was not Coldi at all.
But she was blunt like a Coldi, and didn’t waste any words in telling me that she was going to do the formalities, and while my team went off to find breakfast, I went with her to her private office on the floor below the canteen, the second-highest floor in the building.
As soon as the door shut, she said, “I don’t like this, Cory.”
And good morning to you, too. I had a very nice trip, thank you very much. “What exactly don’t you like?”
“The fact that they’re paying for you to come here with all these people while the matter could easily have been handled remotely.”
“All right, no, I don’t like that either. I guess there are much better uses for the money.” Ultimately, it wasn’t my money, and while I couldn’t say it hadn’t bothered me, I’d had more pressing things to worry about.
“Exactly. Just recently, there have been a lot of scandals exposed in the assembly where representatives were taken on extravagant trips while aid agencies lost their subsidies.”
Coldi didn’t tend to care much about charities, so to hear her mention this was strange. “Anything that the Exchange was involved in?”
“Yes and no. We’re not involved in anything directly, but we’re accused of being involved a lot. Recently, a couple of refugee crises have originated from conflicts fought with what seems to be off-Earth weaponry and maybe people.”
“Originated from the Zhori mafia?” We’d seen that before. Kazakhstan and Ethiopia were two of the hot spots that sprang to mind.
Wherever there was trouble, members of the Zhori clan of the Coldi were usually not far away. Those families were often third or fourth generation refugees from Asto and often utterly out of Amarru’s control.
Amarru blew out a breath. “I don’t know who they are and where those weapons are coming from. The local governments are not even making formal complaints against us. Most of the trouble is in dangerous, lawless areas with a long history of unrest. Southern Africa, mostly. If you have some time, look up Freedom State and you’ll get the gist of it. There were a lot of refugees. A lot of them died, too, and to top it off, in the middle of that crisis, a major aid agency lost financial support from Nations of Earth. They had no option but to withdraw from the area, or stay and die with the refugees. They left. A local authority was going to supply water and food, but they didn’t have the resources. They stopped coming. People in the camps died. Some people walked for days through the searing desert. Many more died along the way. Then the Zhori mafia sells weapons to the survivors and you have a rebellion. And gamra gets the blame, because there were ‘alien weapons’ involved. Frankly, I’m sick of it.”
I’d heard this story in its many variations before, too. It all came down to the same thing: the Exchange, and through it, gamra, had no authority to act because there was no agreement between it and Nations of Earth, because Earth was not a member of gamra. It was not the sole reason that these problems kept cropping up, but it was the sole reason that very little could be done about them.
We both knew it, and we were both powerless to change it.
We got into the administration side of the matter. She sent me all the information we needed: travel passes for anyone not in possession of gamra ID, mainly the Pengali. Also weapons permits for anyone who wanted to carry a weapon. She handed me mine with a look of appreciation. “I bet Thayu has had something to do with the selection of this piece.”
“She has.”
“Very fine choice.”
When we finished all the documentation, we spoke a bit about the court case, which had already been going for a few weeks. She had heard no shocking revelations recently. “Basically, this vile man travelled under false ID through the Exchange. He came back, sold the blue diamonds that his company had been advertising for exorbitant prices, and used gullible travellers to both carry the loot for him and help him find it. Then when one of his clients started questioning his methods, he brought out the guns. That’s how I understand it. You may correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Something like that.”
She spread her hands. “This vile man, this Robert Davidson, did a lot more than kill one single person from Earth. Someone who, I should add, shouldn’t have been where he was either. Yet this murder of this rich guy Gusamo Sahardjo is the only crime he’s being accused of committing, and it’s not even a very good accusation, because we have no body and no solid evidence. But who looked at the examination reports of the Pengali bodies they found of Melissa’s trackers? Who looked at all that evidence for smuggling that was much better than that for the murder of Gusamo? When are those cases going to come before the court?”
She met my eyes. The answer, of course, was never and we both knew that. As long as Earth was not a member of gamra, these types of crimes would go unpunished.
Amarru continued. “Meanwhile, I recently sent one of our people to attend a court case for a Coldi man accused of murdering a local, and he is now in jail. The unwillingness to bring justice goes one way. If a gamra person had been the victim, no one would have cared. Because, supposedly, we have no legal status on this world. Rubbish. We had legal status, but they took it away in the citizenship case. In those days, they were open to us and interested in collaboration. You remember that Ezhya visited Nations of Earth, gave a speech and officially met the president?”
I remembered that. I had been four of five.
“These days, everyone is afraid of us. I barely leave the enclave anymore. For all that they espouse fairness, this world is terribly biased in the way people are treated. Look, some of us—not me but many—have lived here all their lives and have no other homes. Yet they are not allowed to call themselves citizens? And worse, if someone commits a crime against a Coldi person, that Coldi person has no right to legal protection? No right to get valid ID, no right to insurance. No right to exist.”
Amarru was one of those people who spoke more slowly when she was angry, and she pronounced each word with exaggerated sounds.
“I worry about where it is all going,” she said. “We are lucky that at the moment, stability is in the hands of a few sensible people, one of them being you. You are friendly with Ezhya. You are friendly with Margarethe. Hell, they are friendly with each other because of you.”
Friendly with each other, huh? Well, let’s not go there. Also, I didn’t think it had anything to do with me. I just happened to have been present at their first meeting.
Amarru continued, “Margarethe damn near lost the election. It’s her last term. Ezhya is not a young man. What is going to happen if either or both of them lose their positions? Nations of Earth is going to vote in some hardline puppet president, who will be nothing but a mouthpiece for commercial interests! Those multinationals have steadily bought up government debts of small, poor and insignificant countries that no one in Rotterdam cared about. Now they have this empire of very angry, mostly African states, who are furious about the way Nations of Earth has constantly ignored and screwed them and milked them dry and spat them out, and they want their revenge. At the Exchange, we have traditionally supported Nations of Earth, but I’m finding that harder to justify in the face of their recent unwillingness to cooperate with us. For example, if we have a really busy day, we can’t even reach the proper authorities who give us permission to extend the operating hours of the Exchange anymore. Last time I opened the Exchange during daylight,
I did so unauthorised. We’re reaching a breaking point, and something is going to explode.”
I toyed with the idea of mentioning Margarethe’s letter, but she had sent it to me in secret. “I’m listening. I agree with you. I will need to see how I can build your concerns into my future actions. For now, though, there is the court case. Is there anything specific you want me to do?”
Amarru snorted and briefly lifted her hands. “Not much you can do there. The trial is about one Earth citizen against the family of another. They should have included the murders of the Pengali, because the evidence that Robert killed them is much stronger, but they didn’t do that. They should have invited you to give evidence, but we all know why they didn’t do that either.”
“Conrad Martens said it was because Melissa already covered everything I could say.”
“He’s a nice man, and honestly one of the fairest you could get, but do you believe that?”
“Not necessarily, but I’m just glad I didn’t get drawn into this any further than necessary.”
“That’s it.” Amarru pointed at me. “Drawn into. This trial is not about the murder of one man by another and their whole sordid business fought out over the heads of thousands of decrepitly poor people in Jakarta. It’s about who controls the justice process. You are an inconvenience because no one can control you. You don’t work for any of them, and don’t rely on any of them for protection. You have nothing that they can threaten to take away from you. They’ve had to call Melissa. She works for Nations of Earth and her family lives in Germany. If she says something they don’t like, they can threaten her.”
Boy, she rarely got as riled up as this. “Well, I think that’s taking it a bit far?”
“You think so?”
“I do. The court is a fair institution and the judges are sworn to impartiality. And besides, they’re inviting Abri. They didn’t need to do that at all.”
Amarru let out a breath. “No. They didn’t need to. It’s the one puzzling aspect of this case: why did they invite Abri and you?”
This, finally, brought us to the practicalities of the court case.
She said, “Nations of Earth have sent a hover jet for your party. I understand that there may be particular reasons why they don’t want you to talk to certain other people that are involved in the court case, but I feel they are taking control over your witness a bit too seriously. I think the situation would benefit if we could disturb their plans a bit.”
“Yeah. I have to admit that I’m not comfortable with this all-expenses-paid trip either. Someone is bound to want something.”
“We’re in agreement, then. No need to make a lot of noise, though. We’ll create a diversion. I’m not going to tell you what it is, but there will be some suggestions made by people during your travels. You might want to follow them.”
Hmm, she clearly had something planned. I would probably do well to listen to her. Not only was Amarru an extremely smart woman but, right now, she knew the political landscape of my home world much better than I did.
“As for the case, I’m sending two legal experts with you. I know you’ve got Veyada, but these people are specialists in Nations of Earth and international law. They should be able to assist you and Veyada, and they’ll be the official gamra observers which we are allowed every time any gamra citizen is involved in court. We have an agreement with Nations of Earth that we can record the proceedings, as long as the recordings are not made public.”
Here was another problem: the Thousand Island tribe’s territory wasn’t technically under the jurisdiction of the Barresh Council and Abri wasn’t a gamra citizen, because that was something you needed to apply for and pass tests in order to be granted.
But I appreciated Amarru’s assistance. “I hope Nations of Earth isn’t paying for their fare?”
“No, we are. I’m also sending two more security staff with you. They’re aware of the latest developments and risks to look out for. Right now, your security staff will receive an update about the team I’m sending with you to assist them. They will expect to be subordinate to your team at all times.” That was a typical Coldi remark if ever there was one.
So, four extra people. This party was rapidly expanding into a full diplomatic mission which, I realised, it was. A mission representing gamra on Earth. And I didn’t belong on the Earth side. That was an odd thought.
The lawyers she was lending me were both Coldi. The man wore the blue earrings of the Azimi clan. His name was Reya and he was very prim and proper, greeted me subserviently and managed to bow without dislodging a single hair in his ponytail. The woman . . . She squinted at me. Her hair hung loose over her shoulders. It was curly and fell over her ears, so I couldn’t see her earrings, but I would bet they were amber.
Her gaze flitted to my Domiri earrings, and a faint puzzled look went over her face. Coldi clan membership by non-Coldi was extremely rare.
She did not perform any kind of traditional greeting, and looked me straight in the eyes.
Then she introduced herself as Mereeni with the oddly rolling r, and I no longer needed to see her earrings. She was Ezmi, from Hedron.
“We will be travelling on from here immediately,” I said to them. “Are you both packed and ready to go?”
They said that they were. The two security guards were ready, too. They waited in the hallway, each with a small pack. As with almost all of Amarru’s security people, they were from Indrahui. Although both were older than the brothers Evi and Telaris, they reminded me of the pair and how Amarru had allocated them to me years ago, when I just started my job. She seemed to have an endless supply of people.
Not interpreters, apparently.
I asked her before we went out, “Nations of Earth did not approve our choice of interpreter and they only let me know the day before we left. I was forced to use a local service to hire someone, and against my expectations they could supply someone. I don’t trust the man in question. Would you happen to have anyone?”
“Pengali?” She chuckled.
I guessed that answered that question.
Her face turned serious. “Why don’t you trust him?”
“Because of his employer. Because he behaves oddly.” It was hard to pinpoint why Jemiro’s behaviour was odd. “Do you have any data on this man? He speaks Isla.”
She frowned but shook her head. “I saw his name on the passenger log, but he has no records.”
“Any records from people with the same family name?”
She shook her head. “He or his family have never been here.”
Jemiro was destined to remain a mystery.
It also struck me how, when you needed to know something on Earth, there was no better person to ask than Amarru. Not only did she have an encyclopaedic memory, she knew how to connect facts and decide which ones were important. In the years that I’d known her, I’d been constantly amazed at her power, and feared that one day she might use it.
When I finally left the office in the company of the four new people, I realised that people here could take two things from me: the NZ tag on my ID card that allowed me to come to Earth, stay as long and I wanted and travel unrestricted—and the other, even more important thing. My father.
Chapter 5
* * *
INTRODUCING TWO unrelated groups of Coldi to each other was always a risk, so when we came to the canteen, where the rest of my team sat, I let the two guards walk at the front, and positioned the Coldi lawyers behind them.
The Coldi sheya instinct fired at first meeting between two people who didn’t know each other and it informed both parties which of the two was superior. This was a physiological reaction, and Amarru had seemed overly confident that the lawyers would be subordinate to the members of my team. I didn’t understand why she thought that. Because of the position they held in relation to her? All I knew of the instinct was that you could never be sure, especially when there had been an upset in relationships or when two people had no intermeshing lo
yalty networks, such as when they lived on two different planets.
Coldi from the Ezmi clan from Hedron, like Mereeni, were said not to have the instinct; but some of them did, and I had heard that forced repression of the instinct only made it surface more strongly when meeting complete strangers.
Fights to establish position were uncommon, but they still happened. It was considered to be extremely embarrassing for an association leader to let a fight happen.
This kind of thing made me nervous. I supposedly led this association, at least according to everyone on the team. Me at the top, Thayu and Nicha as zhaymas on the next level and then Sheydu and Veyada as zhaymas under Thayu and Reya and Deyu as zhaymas under Nicha. Coldi leaders of associations would know how to handle a situation like this, but, lacking the instinct, I was a pretender, flying by the seat of my pants and making it up as I went.
My group sat at a table near the window. Plates and cups, a half-empty jug of orange juice and a plate with a few crackers were on the table.
The window overlooked the messy jumble of apartment buildings of the city. The sky was hazy, blocking the view to the ocean.
Thayu saw me first, then she looked at the two Coldi lawyers. By the way she straightened and stiffened her back, I knew there was going to be trouble, because at least one of the lawyers triggered the fight instinct.
I pushed myself between the two Indrahui guards at the front—and faced Veyada, who had sprung up and approached faster than I’d noticed. He was tall and solid and there was no way that if he put his mind to confronting either of the lawyers, I could stop him.
But he did stop. True to his position under me, he did not meet my eyes. He looked down, and let his arms hang down his sides, palms facing backwards.
Veyada very rarely took up a subservient position and I found it embarrassing to see him like this. Reya had the grace to turn away, his expression disturbed, but Mereeni looked on with interest.
