Archangel

by Marguerite Reed

  “Ah,” said Laila. The syllable was a blade. Everyone looked at her. “Minister, you are correct in your assessment.”

  He murmured something, thanks or agreement. She went on: “But incorrect in your assumptions.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  That face, so compassionate in its mien, with a pity that felt more like balm than condescension. Her glance fell on me like a touch from her hand, and I bowed my head. She knew.

  “This woman may have had the intent to kill O-389 in the arboros, but that would’ve been simply a secondary effect of her goal. Citizens, esteemed visitors—she meant to kill herself.”

  Oh, Laila. How is that going to help me?

  Dr. Haas tsk’d in exasperation and slid away from the table, hands up. “So you’re not homicidal, Doctor, you’re suicidal?”

  The other Ubasti man looked even sadder than the first, green eyes mournful. “Such egoism,” he said.

  “Have you considered the irresponsibility of this mindset, Doctor?” DeBeers, hard on her heels. “You have a young child, not yet three years old.”

  Taroush cleared his throat. “I’m sure the child of Undset and Loren wouldn’t have lacked for caregivers.” I was not sure if I imagined the wry cast of his mouth. He could tell Bibi, later, what being the child of a hero meant.

  I nodded at him before replying to DeBeers. “I have routinely made provision for my daughter before taking clients on a hunt. I have never abandoned her to the mercy of poor planning.”

  “But you were going to,” DeBeers said. “Just as you’ve abandoned tens of thousands of people out in the galaxy.”

  “Senator DeBeers!” Laila sounded as shocked as I felt. “This is hardly the time to bring that up!”

  “She’s right, Jim,” said Taroush. “Leave the vote out of this.”

  DeBeers ignored them. “Vashti Loren, do you deny that you are one of the greatest obstacles against settlement of Ubastis?”

  And now we came to it; now we came to the part where I prayed I could pull my image out of whatever mudhole the preceding question had landed me. Mohammad’s hope had been in vain; I prayed his strategies for the long game were not.

  DeBeers and I stared at each other. I took a long breath. “If that’s the perception,” I finally said, “I do not deny it.”

  “You see? And here we sit in judgment on whether or not she’s fit to continue her way of life—when there are people dying right now to have a chance for any life on Ubastis.”

  What a horrible gamble you took, Numair.

  “A chance at life,” I echoed, and raised from inside me the orator’s voice. “That’s what we all want, isn’t it? For ourselves, for our children, our children’s children? Then go adapt and colonize the swamps and mudholes of Theta. Return to Earth and spend your moneys healing it—there’s plenty of room there for the dying. It can be done. The People’s Party won’t do those sensible things, because it will take time. The People’s Party doesn’t count the cost of later, as long as they can get what they want, now. But dumping a bunch of settlers on Ubastis now will bring ruin in one, two generations.

  “That husband of mine, whom you so delight in calling—” I tried to get the word out without sneering; I believe I succeeded “—a pedophile? Understood this, and was able to get the Decade Proviso written, to hold the wrangling at bay. I was his wife. Some people expect me to do his work. But it was not only his work as well, but mine; and the work of every man, woman, and child on that planet. We do not reject you. We will always reject your now.”

  The room rang with silence. My lips shook and I tried to calm my breathing. Too much, too much.

  “Very passionate, I’m sure,” DeBeers said after a moment. “This isn’t 22nd century Mars. The Commonwealth has the technology with which to control large populations of settlers and make their transition as easy as possible.”

  One of the Ubasti men stirred. “The Decade Proviso—”

  “The Decade Proviso is wrong,” Haas snapped. “Egoistical beyond all human ethical boundaries.”

  “And in a week we vote on it again,” I said. “Is this why I was brought up here, Senators, Doctors? Not to actually assess how fit I am for my job—”

  “Despite what Senator DeBeers says, don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re that important,” Dr. Haas interrupted. “The just cause will triumph, regardless of whatever influence you dream of having.”

  I stared at her. Even through the tumult of my own emotions her blatant acrimony puzzled me. A vegetarian, yes, a pacifist, yes, as the great majority of galactic farers over the past centuries had become, through both strictly changing mores and, many would say, genetic manipulation—was I really so hateful to one of her ilk? God knew what she thought of my opposite, the Beasts, specifically constructed to wage what was so hateful to current humankind. It, she called him.

  How would she feel if she knew there were ten thousand of those non-persons on the planet, waiting for my word? Ten thousand squatters, and I was not going to turn them in, was not going to deny them the same opportunities I routinely denied legal and illegal applicants. All for the sake of political gain. Let the dice fly.

  I stood, shaking. Was this how traitors felt when first they began their betrayal, knowing each step brought them closer to damnation?

  The expression on Laila’s face changed to one of alarm. “Dr. Loren, please sit. We know this has been a wrenching ordeal for you.”

  The Ubasti man beside her was nodding, trying to meet my gaze, trying to tell me something with those exquisitely inked eyes that I could not read. “Perhaps if we break for a recess and then come back, our hot tempers will have had a chance to cool.”

  The other Ubasti man was frankly glaring at the offworlders. “We’re here to evaluate the serenity of one woman, not decide the fate of worlds. That is gross manipulation.”

  “Citizen,” I said, and he looked at me. Another handsome Ubasti man.

  “Captain Hussein, in your service, if God is good.” His galabeya and knitted prayer cap shone against his brown hair, brown skin—almost as brightly as the idealism in his face.

  “Forgive me now,” I said. He gave me a quizzical look and started to say more. I cut across him, looking at DeBeers, Dr. Haas, the other offworlders.

  “Perhaps a compromise might be effected,” I said.

  Shocked murmurs from my people.

  It’s not too late, Vashti. You can still turn them in.

  Ten thousand. Ten thousand refugees. I knew, without question, that if the Commonwealth were asked to retrieve these ten thousand Beasts—no, these ten thousand men, human beings—it would be no policing mission but a slaughter. These weren’t ten thousand adorable school children. These people, no one wanted. Tuck them back into their cozy prison? No, easier to kill them all.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  During the first year of Bibi’s life I would find myself weeping at unpredictable times. The tears would pour down my face, usually while she lay asleep in my arms, her soft baby weight the simplest, best sensation I had ever known, beyond any satiety of food or sex or exercise, a weight that nailed my soul down to the very core of the planet.

  Her skin was so clear, and softer than anything I had ever touched. She dizzied me with the miracle of her body, the miracle that my mother, millions of mothers before me past recorded history had been struck by.

  I would find myself musing on this inescapable fact—this thing that went even beyond fact, beyond theory—this thing that engined all life in the universe—and then be overwhelmed all over again how fragile this scrap in my arms was. How quickly and mysteriously she could be torn from me as countless other babies had been from the arms of others. The tears would run down my face, my neck; drip onto my breasts, splash onto the sleeping infant’s body.

  At one point Moira had come in and seen me sobbing. “What is it?” she cried out, rushing to me. “What’s wrong?” Thinking, perhaps, the baby she had schemed for (although I had not known how dee
p her machinations had run) had died and I was mourning another corpse. When she discovered my pain stemmed only from what she termed the soup of post-natal hormones, she gave me an exasperated look and acquired a prescription on the sly.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” she said, but she needn’t have warned me. I’d been lucky enough to escape medication after the first re-evaluation, and I wanted nothing further on my record.

  Perhaps I should have said something. Perhaps some sort of inhibitor or DHA reaction was to blame, and if I had gone for DNA modification, I never would have found myself in a silty pond weeping my guts out to a thing like the thing that had killed my husband. I would not have worn my heart out: mortal me fighting an immortal fight.

  If I took this step, how many would I consign to their graves?

  I wanted to weep. I dug my nails into my palms and faced them all, seven people, some my enemies, some whose friendship I questioned. “Set me free and clear from this evaluation. And I will see that Ubastis allows an increased quota for settlement.”

  Outcry from the Ubasti. Pleading in Arabic, curses in Spanish. A very cool look from Laila.

  My nails dug harder; I went on. “Isn’t that what all of you in the People’s Party want? All those heart-rending appeals to parental feeling—send your children to Ubastis and they’ll—” The damned letters. “—‘See a real sun and walk on real grass.’ This one time we’ll rescind the vote and allow a quota.”

  Taroush was frowning. “So much for your little speech. How many?”

  “Ten thousand.”

  Gasps all around. “Kus emek!” Captain Hussein shouted; I flinched as if slapped, but I did not miss the suddenly speculative looks on the faces of the offworlder contingent.

  Dr. Haas leaned forward to look down the table at the Ubasti. “Minister Kisanghani, are you as troubled as I am by the value she places on her privilege to kill other living beings?”

  Laila smiled. If I’d been the recipient of that smile, I would’ve been afraid. “Be assured we are quite troubled, Honored Guest.”

  “Dr. Loren, do you truly believe you’re in a position to bargain—” DeBeers began, but cut himself off at the sound of commotion outside the walls of the conference room.

  The steel door shot open so hard it rebounded against the wall and would have crashed shut if the first intruder had not caught it. I did not know the woman who thrust herself into the room, nor the handful of people behind her, but they all wore the brilliant clothes that marked them as Ubasti citizens. They jostled into the room, all viridian, marigold, aubergine; all angry frightened faces and loud voices that drowned out the shouts of the token security staff.

  “It’s not true!” the first woman said.

  Laila rose to her feet as well. “This is a private inquiry!” she snarled. I’d never heard that tone of voice from her before. That may well have been the voice she wanted to use on me.

  The woman ignored her, gaze devouring me, hands clasped together. “You let them in now, they will never stop! All our work, for nothing!”

  A younger woman behind her grasped her shoulders. “Calm down, Maryam.” She swept the room with a look. “We’ve been watching this whole proceeding as it was recorded.”

  “You’re being recorded now,” said DeBeers. “You’ll be arrested if you don’t leave.”

  No, there was one face I did recognize. The screener. The one with Lasse’s eyes.

  “Did you mean it, Dr. Loren?” He was not lovely like Captain Hussein or even András, but feeling lit his face. “Ten thousand offworlders, where would we put them? How can we ensure they won’t start raping the planet?”

  “Really, ten thousand people is a single byte,” the auburn-haired offworld woman said. “Your planet can absorb that amount without adverse affect.”

  The screener—I doubted he was more than twenty-five—faced her with all the hauteur of youth. “Honored visitor, my father died on my planet safeguarding its integrity. How do I safeguard his memory by permitting what he died to prevent?”

  Now he turned to me, and if emotion lit him before, now he burned with passion; beautiful, terrible, an angel. “And you, Dr. Loren, you and Sidi Undset—are you safe-guarding his memory? And your own work?”

  I sidestepped the question, though it made me want to hang my head in tears. “‘Sidi?’ So he’s a saint now?”

  He spread his hands in a gesture of isn’t-it-obvious? “Your husband has become revered among the people,” he said. “And you don’t know this why?”

  “Grief,” I said.

  The word hung between us. He closed the distance between us and spoke; and in his voice I heard my husband. “Ya nur, put your grief aside. You have work to do.”

  He held my gaze a long moment. I told myself I was a fool, and then moved to him and put my hand to his face. He flinched when I touched him, but remained still. And Lasse’s eyes regarded me.

  “What’s your name, malak?” I asked.

  Behind the beard he smiled; I felt his face move beneath my palm.

  “Roldán.”

  “Roldán, how can we keep the planet safe if we don’t have enough people to defend it?” I beseeched him with my gaze, this unwitting messenger—or was he so unwitting? Who spoke through him, looked through his eyes?

  Roldán in Spanish meant Roland, Hruodland, the hero who had chosen death rather than ask his king for help.

  “You’re right, ya malak, I have work to do—but I can’t do it alone. Will you help me?”

  He grasped my hand, pressed it against his face, brought it to his mouth and kissed it. “I’m yours.”

  I did not pull away from his grasp but folded my fingers around his. “My angel, if I win through here, I’ll take you back with me to Ubastis, to help me with that work you reminded me of. But I need you to do something for me now.”

  “Anything, ya nur.”

  “I need you to take our brothers and sisters out of here and ease their minds. I am working for Ubastis, Roldán, I promise you. And I’ll tell you all I may once I’m done in here.”

  He was frowning, not with anger but with intensity, a single line between his brows deepening. And I found myself speaking to him as if to a lover, as if to Lasse, leaning up to him, my other hand on the back of his neck, our foreheads together, whispering. “Ya habibti, do you think I’ve forgotten? Do you think I’m so callous? I can’t let myself fall into the Hellespont now—the wax hasn’t melted these wings yet. Everything we’ve worked for, everything thousands of people have worked for—do you think I’d throw that all away just for the sake of me being able to carry around a silly little toy? Never.”

  Excommunicated, I’d said to the Beast.

  Over our joined hands, Roldán’s pupils were huge, drinking me in.

  “Right now my hunting, my guns aren’t at stake. My sanity isn’t at stake. Ubastis is at stake. What’s decided in this room—” I felt a chill run through me “—will decide the fate of the planet. Every living thing on it. And as long as I keep the open hand my way is clear.”

  “Vashti—”

  “I know you don’t understand. I don’t know if I do myself.”

  That eerie connection ebbed, leaving me leached of energy. I squeezed his hand once and pulled away. “Go to speak to your friends. Then, when time allows, go to Sidi Undset’s tomb. Meditate. Think on a good outcome. Ask for strength and the foot set on the right path.”

  He nodded.

  “And pray for me, malak.”

  With an odd old-fashioned little bow he left me. Either a slave for life or a politician, I mused, watching him murmur to the distressed group of intruders.

  They dispersed—Maryam giving me one last anguished look from glistening eyes—as quietly as they had noisily broken in. And I was left facing my jurors again: some angry, some scornful; and the one Ubasti who had cursed my mother’s cunt refused to meet my gaze.

  A deep breath steadied me. I wanted to continue to stand, but I sat casually, as if my kamiz didn’t stick t
o me with sweat; as if my mouth wasn’t dry, as if my quadriceps weren’t trembling. “You see how feelings run high about this immigration issue,” I said.

  “Indeed,” said the auburn-haired woman. “That’s never been in doubt.”

  “Will you consider the compromise?” I said.

  Salvator leaned forward and steepled his fingers. The expression on his face was not a happy one. “From the response of your own people sitting with us today—”

  “Sitting in evaluation of you,” Dr. Haas broke in.

  He nodded. “Sitting in evaluation of you, that’s correct—judging by that, Dr. Loren, I hate to say it, but I’m not sure how you have the power to offer such a compromise.”

  “For a woman of your . . . reputed character, your offer is stupifying in the depths of its moral repugnance,” the auburn-haired woman said.

  I snapped a little. “If we’re going to talk about being morally repugnant, maybe we should address the character of these constant subjective attacks.”

  “I hardly see how we’ve been subjective—”

  “But you don’t deny that you’ve been attacking me.”

  Her smile was as cold as a winter moon. “Dr. Loren, the more we speak to you, the more we become gravely concerned about your mental state. Not only do we see a truly unhealthy attachment to instruments of murder, a desire to use such instruments—”

  “Since a desire for self-defense and the defense of others is so pathological,” I said unable to control myself.

  “No, but perhaps the desire to hunt innocent creatures is,” Salvator said.

  I believe I gaped at him. His gaze flicked to the women on his right, and then he gave me a fractional shrug, as if to say what can I do?

  I swallowed. Put my hands in my lap, where they could clutch each other unseen. “Perhaps if our Honored Guests would care to check with the Board of Galactic Scientific Inquiry, they would see that there has been a sizeable contribution to the area of xenobiology through my hunting of innocent creatures.”