by Patty Jansen
“He’s here to fix it,” I said in Coldi. Ynggi and Kita came out of the room, wet, shoulders slumped. They gathered around the table, where Abri sat on the tabletop, and avoided meeting my eyes.
I sat with Abri. “What’s happened?”
Abri glanced up, but went back to staring at the table.
I was sure the table would not normally stand in this part of the room, where it blocked the way from the bathroom to the sitting area. The dining table chairs stood next to the window, with a blanket draped over the top of them to make a tent. I spotted a couple of pillows and sheets which had been pulled off the bed. It seemed that they had slept down there. Their bags stood in a neat row at the entrance of the tent. The irrka had been unpacked but not put together. The large central drum stood in the corner closest to the bathroom, where little depressions in the carpet indicated the usual position of the bed.
Abri said, “My granddaughter has not been very nice. Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. You weren’t even there.”
Kita looked straight at me. She had been there, and it seemed she was finally starting to realise that we expected her to keep the little one’s behaviour under control.
“Where is she?”
Abri pointed with her tail to the double bed—with sheets removed—in the corner. I dropped to my knees and could just make out something against the far wall at the very furthest point removed from me.
“Idda?” I stuck my arm under the bed, but couldn’t reach her. “Idda, come here.”
Abri said something in Pengali.
A little cold hand touched mine. I grabbed hold of it and slowly pulled the youngster out from under the bed. She climbed up my arm and clung onto my shirt, shivering. Once in my youth I’d had a friend whose brother kept snakes. He would get his friends to hold the mildly poisonous ones by putting the snakes in the fridge so that they grew sluggish.
Cold snake. That was what Idda’s skin felt like. She wasn’t even terribly wet after that adventure.
Obviously her clothes were not warm enough for her. She may have tried to turn the tap to get warm water. I remembered how stressed Nicha got if he was not warm enough. Pengali came from a warm climate and they weren’t taking adaptation medication because adaptation medication didn’t work on Pengali.
I should have realised this and should have made sure that they had plenty of warm clothes.
I was failing them.
“Mr Wilson, sir?” It was the technician, carrying his tool kit. “It’s all fixed.”
“Thank you for coming so quickly. I’m sorry about the mess.”
He glanced at the tent in the room, but said nothing. He’d probably seen much stranger things that people did in their hotel rooms. “It’s all right, Mr Wilson. The tap was probably loose anyway.”
I saw him out of the room and then went back inside.
“Well, that’s taken care of. Come down to lunch. There is a lot of really nice fish on the menu.”
But my statement was met with sad looks from all three Pengali.
“That is their fish,” Abri said. “It wouldn’t be right to eat their fish. We should get our own fish to make this right.”
Chapter 10
* * *
THE PENGALI DID FINALLY come down to the dining room, and they did eat some fish, but they were very quiet. I told them several times that no one was asking them to bring food to make amends, and that people in the hotel understood that things broke when children played with them, but they kept talking about fishing.
“People here don’t have that custom,” I said to Abri.
“I am an elder. I must do the right thing, or I will lose karrit if I don’t.”
And that was an important consideration for Pengali.
There was no way around it except to take the Pengali fishing.
First, though, we had another problem to solve, and maybe we could walk past a fish shop to see if they had ponds where people could catch their own trout or lobsters. I didn’t know if the shops around here were big enough. They probably got the fish from farms. Maybe customers went there.
I rose and explained to everyone that we had the afternoon off and that we were going to go shopping. People could come with us or stay here as they pleased.
The word “shopping” made Eirani’s face light up. Evi wanted to come, as well as Amarru’s guards, and everyone in my association. I suggested to Thayu that she stay here to rest, but she would have none of it.
I wondered how we were going to keep ourselves from attracting too much attention.
Most people on Earth were by now used to seeing Coldi without disguise. Coldi could comfortably disguise themselves as Chinese, if they dyed their hair black.
But most Coldi I knew who lived on Earth had stopped doing this years ago. Coldi hair had a strong metallic gleam, with highlights of purple, blue and green, a bit like the feathers on a peacock. Especially in sunlight it was quite distinctive. So many Coldi were on Earth now, and it was known who and what they were, so they didn’t need to hide their hair colour anymore.
Pengali on a tram, however, proved to be an entirely different matter, which we found out when we got on the tram at the station in front of the hotel.
Not only were Pengali not familiar with the concept of trams—why was there no driver in the vehicle?—but more importantly, these types of people never came to Earth. In all honesty, I probably wasn’t supposed to take them on a shopping trip, but if the court officials didn’t want me to show them around, they should have given me orders to that extent.
There were a lot of us, too. Thayu and Nicha with Ayshada, Veyada, Evi and Amarru’s two Indrahui guards. Jemiro and Reya and Mereeni chose to remain in the hotel, but everyone else wanted to come.
Because the weather had turned blustery and cold, everyone wore coats and jackets, warm jumpers and boots. Both Nicha and Thayu were wearing their temperature retaining suits.
Ayshada’s pram had come with a soft and warm cover, and Amarru had provided us with a couple of jumpers and little jackets. Ayshada wasn’t too excited about wearing them, because at home he usually ran around in singlets and shorts.
The passengers in the tram gave our mixed company wide berth. Some stared, some made an effort to look the other way. It was busy, there was not much room, and we were only going a few stops, so most of us stood near the entrance, laughing, chatting in languages these people had never heard before.
If Earth ever joined gamra, would that change?
In between getting on the tram and the next stop, we left the communication dead zone, and my feeder burst into life with thoughts from Thayu and Nicha. Veyada was there, too, and via him I even got a snatch from Sheydu who, apparently, had discovered something else she needed to do and might not be able to meet us today.
Security talk was always vague as hell and full of code, so I’d need to wait until Veyada explained what was going on, and there was no sign of him doing that. We were being monitored after all. In the central part of any city, there were security cameras on every lamppost, in every vehicle, at every station. Cameras were also in almost all vehicles, including trams. Some of those were ours, but the rest was all controlled by Nations of Earth.
We got off the tram a few stops later and walked through the shopping district, which consisted of a whole city block of pedestrian traffic only, an open mall with quaint old shops. There was also an underground mall with all the modern trappings.
We found one fish shop, but it only had a sorry-looking aquarium with a couple of lobsters.
Abri wanted to know how long the creatures had been in the aquarium and was horrified to find that it was a couple of days. Then she wanted me to buy them so that she could release them, and they could be properly caught, but I explained that the canals were quite dirty and the water not warm enough for lobsters. Then she wanted to know where the lobsters came from.
“They grow these creatures? In ponds?” Her eyes were wide. “You don’t ne
ed to grow them. They are wild animals. You catch them, and if they’re big enough, you can take and eat them.”
Trying to explain that the oceans were polluted and that lobsters otherwise couldn’t live here at all was bound to fail, and it did.
And meanwhile the fish shop owner was looking at us, wondering when we were going to buy these lobsters, which I had no intention of doing.
The situation was uncomfortable, and I managed to get Abri out of the shop—still without fish.
Hopefully, finding better clothing was going to be easier.
Of course, this far into spring, all the clothing shops had long since sold out of winter gear, especially in the sizes we required. We wandered around a big multilevel store taking all the leftover items off the sales rack and dismissing them for being miles too big, when Idda came wandering through the aisle with a bright orange beanie pulled over her eyes. She bumped into things and tripped over the wheel of Ayshada’s pram, but when I tried to take the beanie off her, or even just lift it so that she could see, she held it over her ears with both hands and her tail and squealed.
“Where did she get this?”
Kita pointed.
There was a rack with beanies, jumpers, jackets and scarves, all of them bright orange. Most items were adult size, but some were children’s sizes. Many of the items displayed an embroidered logo that was also on the beanie on Idda’s head: a black and white ball.
“This looks like some kind of sport supporter gear.”
Of course that didn’t translate well into Coldi, since the only word available for supporter meant both “army” and “gang” and Thayu gave me a strange look.
“It’s for people who watch sports teams play.”
“Like a race?” Racing things or obstacle courses was big on Asto. They raced on foot, running or carrying things, on bike-like contraptions and any type of vehicle you could imagine.
“Yes, like a race.”
She snorted. “I think the colour is abhorrent.”
“Idda likes it,” Nicha said, appreciating, on behalf of another parent, that golden moment that a stroppy toddler found something to like.
Not much later I had bought the beanie, a little orange jumper that was still too big for Idda, and a fluffy zip-up orange jacket in adult size that could function as blanket to carry her. When you zipped it up, her head stuck out and the rest of her, including the tail, sat snugly in the body part. You could then use the sleeves to tie up the parcel or tie them around one’s waist.
It was the first time since going on the trip that Idda looked genuinely happy. I felt sorry for her that I hadn’t realised that she had been so cold, and carried her home. She rewarded me by falling asleep against my chest.
We were almost back at the hotel and were walking along the canal, when a man on the footpath in front of us decided to cross the road. That would have been fine had he looked over his shoulder, and even not having looked would have been fine if there hadn’t been a taxi on the road.
It was a regular street bubble-car, moss-green, driverless. You told it where you wanted to go and it took you there.
It beeped.
The man froze. His eyes widened.
The taxi slammed on the brakes and screeched across the road like in the old movies, even if the new vehicles were no longer supposed to do that. Too late. The vehicle came to a halt with a sickening thud.
By this time, several people in my group were running.
The pedestrian was on the ground.
Veyada dropped to his knees next to him, and the man pushed himself up checking his arms, his legs. He had fallen in a puddle and was covered in mud. He had a few scrapes on his hands, but nothing serious.
Nicha retrieved a pack of moist towels that he always had ready to deal with Ayshada’s messy eating habits. He helped the man wipe his hands and his face.
While all this was happening, the taxi’s single passenger got out, ran to me, and pressed an envelope in my hand and ran off down the street.
What the. . . ?
I looked at the envelope.
There was no name or sender on the cover. The paper was thick and high quality, but felt like there was only one sheet of paper inside. I wanted to open it, but knew that the whole incident would be recorded and I didn’t know where the cameras were and how good their resolution was, so instead I stuck it in the inner pocket of my jacket. I’d read it when we came to the hotel.
The members of my team had helped up the pedestrian, who assured that he was perfectly fine.
The taxi had already resumed its path, now without its passenger.
I glanced at Thayu.
We were already inside the dead zone, but the same question hovered in her eyes. Did they just stage a mock accident just so that he could give that to me?
It looked very much like it.
Everything would be monitored inside this area, and people who were not allowed to see us—and clearly there were such people—could not come in. Any unusual incidents would be logged, too, so even if the man in the taxi was an agent for someone, his identity would be known through the taxi, and any stoppage would be recorded. If there was no obvious reason for it, security forces could check out footage from various cameras. So he had created a reason to stop—an almost-accident.
Interesting.
The envelope burned in my pocket, but I resisted opening it until I was sure that no one on the street watched, and had reached an area that the guards had declared free of visual spying equipment. Also known as the bathroom.
And as I opened the enveloped and unfolded the single sheet inside, I knew that it was not from any of the people I would have expected to write: Margarethe, or Sheydu even.
The sheet was plain. The letter was handwritten in an unfamiliar hand, quite formal-looking.
It said,
Mr Wilson,
I wish to offer you my sincerest apologies that I was unable to continue to offer you my assistance with the witness’ appearance in court. I don’t know what the new prosecutor has told you about me, but I did not voluntarily step down from my involvement with the trial. As you know, cases involving gamra citizens have been my specialty for a while so it was natural that I was asked to look after it.
As the preparations for the trial progressed, I became aware that a lot of resources were being allocated to bringing you and the witness over. I argued against the exorbitant cost, and said that the witness could testify remotely. I’ve worked on a number of cases where this was done successfully, but the decision was made by the new Chief Judge that the testimony needed to be given in person. I put it down to her being traditional and new to the job. Because she had obtained funding to do so, I did not question this decision because it seemed in the interest of the fairness of the trial. In hindsight, I regret not spending the time to look into it.
I discovered the source of funding by chance, when doing administrative tasks for an unrelated matter. The court has a special account for sponsorships and donations, most of them political, and this is managed by Nations of Earth, because it should not be possible to trace individual donations to particular cases. But a lot of money suddenly appeared in that account prior to the trial and this was what was used to fund your trip.
I traced the influx of funding back to a company with known links to the Pretoria Cartel. I asked about this, and that’s where things started to go bad for me.
Within days, I was contacted by several people with anonymous threats, and when I went to the Chief Judge with them, she suggested that I step down from the case. Even that was not an unusual request, because it is what would normally be expected, so I did, but I have since discovered a number of other disturbing things the nature of which I am reluctant to reveal to you in this manner.
I strongly urge you to contact me. I have paid a team of observers to keep track of your whereabouts. If you see an opportunity to speak to me, leave the dead zone and we will make contact. A warning: you may be curious about the prese
nce of a crowd of protesters outside the court building, and you may feel that the people in charge of the trial are trying to keep you away from them. This is true. There are, amongst these people, certain individuals they would prefer to keep you away from. I have spoken to most of these people and, when we meet, I will inform you of their positions and opinions. It would be unwise to try to speak to the protesters yourself, as your minders will probably not take too kindly to it and may see cause to delay or even cancel the hearing.
The letter was not signed but I knew who this was from: Conrad Martens. And Robert Davidson was said to have been involved with the Pretoria Cartel, which was, from all I'd been able to track down, a group of very rich business owners, who were also said to have been behind the fielding of candidates against Margarethe purely to push through changes to further their businesses.
Make contact?
I was alone in the bathroom, because Thayu had met Evi in the hallway as we returned to the hotel, and he wanted to speak to her.
I glanced at the time. It was midafternoon. We had nothing to do for the rest of the day. People might have been watching us while we went shopping, but they also had not stopped us leaving the dead zone.
I guessed we could add in another tourist trip. I could even let the receptionist know that we were taking Ayshada to the beach and to let us know if anything came up. If Conrad Martens’ people were shadowing us, they would follow and contact us when it was safe.
I went into the security room where I showed the letter to Thayu, Nicha, and Veyada. They nodded and said nothing, because we knew someone listened somewhere.
I asked, “That tram line to the beach, did you find out where it leaves from?”
Nicha said, “Not yet, but I can do that now. Did you want to go today?”
“It doesn’t sound like we’ll be needed until tomorrow. I want to spend a bit more time with Abri, but I can do that tonight. We can get that trip in now. I’ve always wanted to go back to that place where I came with my father.”
