She heard him get up and turned to watch him walk over. Kasbah brought another chair from the back of the room, and Rhys joined them at the now crowded table. The white woman, Keran, flinched away from him as he sat next to her. What did she have to be afraid of from another believer? Maybe they all had something against aliens. Nyx wondered how often these people had dealt with other worlds. If they had whole schools for “off-world diplomacy,” they must do it a lot. Nyx had a long moment of vertigo. How many worlds were out there?
Lord of all the worlds…
“Competitive field on your world?” Nyx asked. “Organic sciences?”
“In our country, yes. But you did not come here to talk of science,” Danika said.
Nyx leaned back in the chair and thought: You did though, didn’t you? But that wasn’t the note Nyx had accepted.
“Can you think of anyone Nikodem met last time who would give her harbor?” Nyx asked. “Any place she’d want to go?”
A black woman in Nasheen might stick out even if she holed herself up in the Chenjan quarters with the refugees. Though her color would match, her foreign look and accent would give her away as something other than Chenjan, especially if she went out unveiled or looked too many men in the face. These women had no problem looking Rhys in the face—only Keran seemed to actively dislike him—but that may have been them bowing to Nasheenian custom. In any case, the other hunters this group had spoken to would have started in the Chenjan district. If so many had already given up the hunt, it was likely Nikodem wasn’t there.
“We have a more detailed itinerary on the globe the queen issued you,” Danika said. “We spent a good deal of time here in the palace meeting with bel dames and dignitaries.”
“Which bel dames did you meet?”
“Do you remember their names?” Danika asked Solome.
Solome’s voice was deep, sultry. Nyx was impressed to hear that voice come out of such a small woman.
“I believe we spent time with Dahab so Batir and Fatima Kosan. Who were the others? Inan so Khada, and someone called Blake, a half-breed from Ras Tieg.”
“Blake’s not a bel dame, she’s a bounty hunter like me,” Nyx said. “Half-breeds can’t be bel dames.” Ah, Blake. So the young upstart was still around. Nyx knew Inan too. They had gone through bel dame training together.
“There were magicians, also,” Danika said. “We met with a great deal of magicians over the course of our stay. The nature of our work demanded it. That list is in your file also.”
“I heard you saw a boxing match in Faleen,” Nyx said, casually. She suspected that little detail wasn’t on the queen’s globe.
Danika grimaced. “Boxing, yes. A bit of parting vulgarity for Nikodem during her last visit. She has a peculiar obsession with violence.”
“Does she?” Nyx said, interested.
“Why is it you are not taking notes?” Solome asked.
“I was trained as a bel dame,” Nyx said. “We don’t take notes.” What she didn’t say was that she learned everything by rote because she was dead dumb with books. It was why she could still recite the Kitab by heart nearly two decades after she’d last picked one up.
“Then this man is not your assistant? Is he a magician?” Solome asked, and Nyx watched her eyes. It was a hungry look, but not one of physical desire. She hadn’t looked at him much until now.
“I have some training with bugs,” Rhys said, “My practicing license is provisional.”
“On what?” Solome asked.
“On my being employed with a local hunter or bel dame,” Rhys said.
“I find this ability to manipulate organisms through will alone fascinating,” Solome said. “We have tried to replicate it in our system, but… The ability to alter pheromones, to… effectively reprogram insects at the cellular level, seems to be something innate, peculiar to this world.”
“It’s inherited,” Nyx said, “like shape shifting.”
“It was not something we carried with us from the moons,” Rhys said.
Nyx, startled, looked at him. “Where’d you hear that?”
He shrugged. “My father was a hobby historian.”
Solome said something in a bizarre syrupy language to Danika. Danika nodded and replied in the same language.
Solome said, “Perhaps you could tell us of your father. We’re much interested in those with knowledge of this world. Most Nasheenian libraries and records were burned or culled during one of your many wars.”
“My father is dead,” Rhys said.
“Ah,” Solome said, “a small tragedy, but not unexpected. How is it you tolerate living in the country of your enemies?”
Nyx watched him.
Rhys did not look at her but met Solome’s steady gaze. “I am a political refugee. Nasheen tolerates my presence because I am a magician.”
“Tirhan cherishes magicians and shifters alike, does it not?” Solome asked. “Surely that country, being one only recently estranged from Chenja, would have been a better fit for one such as you.”
“Nasheen was… closer,” Rhys said carefully. Nyx saw him start to play with his hands. Such a good liar, until he had to lie about himself.
“Anyhow, Tirhan split from Chenja two hundred years ago,” Nyx said. “The split isn’t exactly new. Don’t they speak some southern dialect?”
“They know Chenjan,” Solome said. “Chenja allows them passes to visit their martyr’s grave each year.”
Nyx had heard something about that at some bug party back in bel dame training. Rhys was still playing with his hands.
“Tell me,” Solome said, leaning in slightly now, suddenly a bit more animated. “This sixth prayer of yours, what is its purpose? No other followers of your book have a midnight prayer.”
“The midnight prayer—” Rhys began, but Nyx had had enough talk of religion.
“Tell me more about Nikodem and her love of violence,” Nyx said.
Solome settled back into her chair again.
“I wouldn’t call it a love,” Danika said, picking up for Solome. “Perhaps a peculiar obsession. In our country, on New Kinaan, we are born into our classes. Nikodem was born to a scholarly class, organic sciences. She wished she had been born one of God’s soldiers.”
“It’s overrated,” Nyx said.
Danika knit her brows.
“Never mind,” Nyx said. “You say she wanted to see the boxers?”
“Nikodem asked the court’s lead magician, Yah Hadeel, to arrange for her to see a fight before we departed. The only one that fit into our schedule was the fight in Faleen. It was a dull thing.”
“I was at that fight,” Nyx said. “I heard she talked to the boxers.”
Solome made a noise of distress.
Danika shushed her. “I let her speak to them.”
Solome snapped something in their language, and Nyx rearranged the women’s hierarchy in her mind.
“She spoke to both boxers before the fight,” Danika said. “She was very interested in why they would choose to get hit in the face.”
“There’s good money in boxing,” Nyx said.
“In our country,” Keran piped up, tugging at the fingers of her gloves, cutting off all the ends of her words with rolling “shhhh” sounds, “the State ensures that all are employed and cared for. One need not resort to violence.”
“Uh-huh,” Nyx said. The sand was always cleaner just over the next dune. These women were reminding her more and more of First Family matrons. “So if your world’s so sweet, what are the lot of you doing out here collecting bug tech?”
All three women stilled. There was an uncomfortable moment of silence. Then Danika looked at Solome, and Keran reached for her cold tea with her gloved hands.
“We have an interest in all of God’s worlds,” Solome said. “Nikodem more than most. Surely you trust the judgment of your queen—God’s appointed leader of your world?”
“I wouldn’t take her purported divine right to the title that far,” Rhys
said.
“What about the magicians you met up with here at the palace?” Nyx said, before Rhys started derailing them again. “You sure Nikodem ran and wasn’t kidnapped? Not every magician on the Queen’s payroll is clean.”
Altruism. Shared resources. Catshit. It wasn’t only their intentions they were lying about. Some of the fact-by-fact reporting may have been because Danika had told the story so often, but Nyx wasn’t betting on it, not with some of the other answers they’d given her. Nikodem just “disappeared”? Went rogue? What kind of society trained and employed people based on genetics, had their own interstellar diplomacy school, and then “accidentally” lost one of their diplomats? Umayma was a long way to come for a couple of bugs and a boxing match.
But that’s none of your concern, she thought, and grimaced. She only needed the note. She needed Nikodem. It wasn’t her job to figure the intentions. That was for the queen and her security techs.
I hate this note already, Nyx thought.
“It’s true that the magicians understand the importance of our work,” Danika said. “It’s possible that one of them could have approached her once she left Mushtallah, but I don’t believe a magician would take such a risk. Those who were aware of her talents would understand her importance to your country and the disastrous consequences if she was acquired by your rivals.”
“So she disappeared from here, not from Faleen?”
“Oh yes,” Danika said. “Queen Zaynab’s security bugs recorded her departure.”
“Footage can be doctored,” Nyx said, turning to Rhys. “Right?”
“It can,” Rhys said. He looked back at Kasbah. “Can we view it?”
“I’ve had that footage uploaded to your globe,” Kasbah said from her place near the door, but she looked at Rhys as she said it, which was odd for a Nasheenian security tech. When you wanted to put black boys in their place, you talked to their owners—or employers—not to them.
“I would need to see the originals,” Rhys said.
“Can we do that?” Nyx asked.
“I can authorize that,” Kasbah said.
“Great,” Nyx said. She stood and nodded to the aliens. “Thanks. I can contact you here if I have any other questions?”
“Certainly,” Danika said. “A contact pattern has been designated for us and uploaded to your globe. Kasbah says the call is routed through palace security.”
All three women stood, and pressed their hands together and bowed.
Nyx made a quick, sloppy mirror of the gesture and watched Rhys make a far more elegant bow alongside her. Nyx had never bowed to anybody in her life. It was the sort of thing people only did in cheap historical dramas. Who ran all these other worlds? Where did all the people come from? Motes of stardust, just like Nasheenians and Chenjans? Refugees from dying worlds like the Ras Tiegans or asylum seekers from planets that hated the people of the Book, like the Mhorians? But then, where did the people who hated the people of the Book come from?
Theology looked a lot better the more questions you started to pile up. Saying it was all just God’s plan gave you neat answers for everything.
Give it a fucking rest, she thought, and turned to Kasbah. “Let’s go,” she said.
Kasbah took Nyx and Rhys into the belly of the palace. The way grew darker as they descended. The floors were still brightly colored tile, but the doors were no longer made of intricately carved wood. These were solid, made of twisted metal and bug secretions. Nyx wondered what kind of fallout shelter they had down here. She knew the main bug bank for Mushtallah’s filter was on Palace Hill, which required a lot of security.
“Who else was on this job?” Nyx asked Kasbah. “I’ll need to know how they fucked up, when they gave up, what they found out. If you don’t have that information, I need to go to them directly. I don’t want to reinvent their work.”
“We’ve hired only one bounty hunter who’s still on the note, but the list of mercenaries is somewhat classified,” Kasbah said. “We already find it politically distasteful to work with bounty hunters. Admitting publicly that we’ve hired foreign mercenaries as well may be disastrous.”
“Then at least give me the list of bel dames you’ve hired,” Nyx said. She was still having trouble with the idea that they’d cut out the bel dames.
“We cannot involve the bel dame council in a note such as this. You, of all people, should know this.”
“I know what the line is, Kasbah. I also know this is Palace Hill.”
“You do perhaps overestimate the power of the queen or, perhaps, overestimate her interest in agitating the bel dame council over a matter even such as this.”
“Seems a little funny. This note is so important, but she won’t piss off a couple old ladies on the council to get them to put some women on it?”
“Perhaps it is best the old ladies don’t understand the importance of this note.”
Nyx gave Kasbah a good sidelong look. “Don’t tell me the queen’s after somebody the bel dames want dead.”
“Let us say it is best for Nasheen if we acquire this woman without exciting the bel dame council.”
Nyx let that settle in her head. This could be bad.
Kasbah led them through several sets of security doors, past two guards, and through another filter. Then they stepped into a small viewing room. The room itself was no different than any other security viewing room Nyx had seen, only colder. She wondered how far underground they were.
Kasbah stepped into the next room to find the security techs.
Rhys’s expression was grim. “I don’t like the sound of this note, Nyx.”
“That’s why it pays so well, Rhys,” she said, but her chest was tight.
The last time she pissed off the bel dames, they’d sent her to prison. What the fuck was the queen doing running a high-risk note under the noses of the bel dames? Why not hire them to do it? If she was going to bleed, Nyx wanted to know who and what she was bleeding for.
Kasbah returned with a couple of security techs. One of them held a transparent thumb-size case filled with amber fluid. She shook it and put it into the viewing tube.
The tube vomited a misty rain of particles that coalesced into four round moving images.
“I thought your filter kept out transmission bugs,” Rhys said.
One of the techs, an older woman with a wash of white-peppered hair, said, “It does. These are native to Mushtallah, something we put together with the palace magicians.”
Like com techs and hedge witches, most security techs had some paltry talent that made them more adept at working with bugs. Nyx figured about the only advantage of having an affinity for bugs was that it increased your job prospects.
Nyx focused on the round views, broadcasts from the lenses of tailored bugs plotted around the city.
The first showed an image of the main courtyard they’d entered earlier where all the women had been training.
“She starts here,” the tech said, pointing to the staircase. It was a bad wide shot. Everything that came in via bugs was in shades of gray, so the woman moving down the stairs could have been any dark woman. She walked with two other figures.
“Who are they?” Nyx asked.
“Magicians,” Kasbah said. “Yah Inan and Yah Tayyib.”
“Yah Tayyib of Faleen?” Nyx asked.
“Yes. You know him?”
“Here,” the tech said, as the figures disappeared from the eye’s view. She pointed to the next eye, a view of the deserted main street outside the palace. Nyx saw that the time stamp had them moving during the darkest part of the night, the thirteenth hour. With the moons in recession, it was even darker than usual, and hazy by the look of the gas lamps left running on the windowsill inside the main window of each of the apartments above the storefronts.
“Did she have a lot of midnight sorties with magicians?” Nyx asked.
“It wasn’t unusual,” Kasbah said. “Nikodem got on well with them.”
The younger tech nodded. �
��We saw nothing odd about this night, not until here, when we picked her up going through the filter, alone. But of course we didn’t see that until later. The bug jumps here, changes position.”
She pointed to the eye that showed the dark figure moving through the filter. The bug indeed shifted position, a back-and-forth motion that made the picture wobble. The woman stepped into a bakkie waiting on the other side of the filter. The picture was bad, and Nyx couldn’t make out any distinguishing features—no tags, no strange markings. She couldn’t even gauge the bakkie’s state of health. It was a newer model, not yet sand-gutted or sun-sick. It might have had tinted windows.
“So she had help,” Nyx said.
“Or she called a bakkie before she left,” Kasbah said. “The Kinaanites aren’t wholly ignorant of how to get around in Nasheen.”
“We’re talking about a woman who had confidential information of great interest to magicians,” Nyx said. “I don’t think she headed out alone to watch a little boxing in the border towns.”
“The magicians have been extensively interrogated,” Kasbah said, but it wasn’t the voice of a woman of absolute faith. Nyx had heard those voices enough to know what they sounded like. “They understand the nature of this project. They know what would happen to Nasheen if we lost this woman to the Chenjans.”
“Tell me what would happen to Nasheen,” Nyx said.
Kasbah looked at her. Her mouth was a thin line. “If she could end the war in our favor, she could also end it… not so much in our favor, couldn’t she?” Kasbah said.
The images began looping on all four lenses: the courtyard, the street, a bookshop where Nikodem seemed to have gone off on her own, the filter, the bakkie.
Nyx glanced over at Rhys. He was examining the image of the bakkie. When he caught her looking at him, he nodded. One of the images was doctored, then. Mercenaries generally didn’t work with magicians, so any of the ones who’d viewed this before Nyx may not have caught that, but if Kasbah had a lot of her own security techs and magicians working on this, she should have known it.
Nyx looked over at Kasbah. Kasbah had her arms crossed as she stared at the security screens. She did not meet Nyx’s look.
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