by Patty Jansen
And indeed, he didn’t look down, and didn’t acknowledge the trouble in our relationship. “You went without me.”
He sounded upset, and hell, I could understand that. I would be upset. I tried to probe his feeder, but he wasn’t wearing one. “Yes, I did go without you.”
“Why? What have I done?”
“It’s because you employed in our association a young man whose loyalties to someone else take priority over ours. We can’t trust him until we have secured his loyalty. By extrapolation, I need to re-establish your loyalty.”
I’d used the official Coldi wording. My heart was hammering in my throat. I understood that when something like this happened, a Coldi association leader was allowed to use violence to settle the matter. That was out of the question for me, even if I hadn’t been weak as a newborn lamb compared to Nicha.
He didn’t respond. Didn’t look down either.
I softened my voice. “What’s going on, Nich’? You can talk to me, you know that.”
Now he looked down. His voice was soft. “You know you are the most Coldi person I know without actually being Coldi?”
Thayu made a tiny hand gesture to Veyada and Sheydu to go and secure the apartment and the two disappeared without a sound.
I gestured for Thayu and Nicha to come with me to the living room, brother and sister, like little ducklings behind me. We sat on the couches in their perfect keihu triangular setting. Straight lines and right angles offended keihu people.
There was a moment of intense silence before I started. “I’m not a Coldi person. I’m floundering, Nich’, but we need to get this sorted out quickly. We’re all in danger because of that boy,” I said, struggling to use the friendliest pronouns I could find. I was tired and cranky, and wanted to go to bed. And before that, talk to Reida.
“We’re in danger because he can’t be trusted. He is working for someone else, and breaking into offices in the city on behalf of someone else. We are not only getting the blame, but whatever he is doing appears to be linked to some of the problematic events of the last few days.”
Again, no reaction. I longed to put my arms around Nicha’s shoulders, and tell him something would be sorted out, but betrayal against trust was one of the worst offenses in Coldi society and forgive and forget was not an option. The other people in the household would hate me if I did that. It would destabilise our association.
“I’m sorry, Nich’, but I need to know what’s going on and what he’s after. You didn’t order him to break into Federza’s office? Do you know who shot at my corner room? Do you know who the man is that Sheydu shot when we disturbed him burglarizing Federza’s gamra office?
Where did Reida get these orders? What are his other loyalties? Tell me, Nich’, because we need to know.”
My heart was thudding so much that I was afraid I would faint.
Nicha pressed his lips together, twitched his mouth, wiped sweat from his upper lip. But he didn’t look like he was going to fight. He took up a rather strange position, something that was a mix of the way he would greet someone on Earth and a subservient Coldi greeting.
“I feel . . . conflicted,” he said after a long silence. “I’m aware that my position places us at a risk.”
I moved closer to him so that I could put my hand on his shoulder. He felt very warm through his clothes. The hand that reached up to touch mine was even warmer.
A small sound near the door was of Thayu leaving. Having judged the conversation safe, she was probably going to do any of the million things that still needed doing.
“Is anything going on with Reida?”
“It goes back longer than that.”
“This is about your other networks?”
He sighed, and I took that as a yes.
“Is anyone trying to manipulate you? Do you have links in a conflicting association?”
“Some. I’ve had those for years. I always wanted to cut them off, but I didn’t, just to please my mother. It didn’t use to be important because the links were very minor and they never called in much by way of favours.”
He’d been sending his mother’s acquaintances information about me? I pushed away that thought. Surely he hadn’t done anything as serious as that.
“I’m guessing that these links have become important through Reida?”
“Yes, and Xinanu.”
I frowned at him. Was she involved as well?
“I’ve been stupid, Cory. I was angry, and I was stupid.”
“Tell me what the issues are, and we’ll see what we can do.” Although if he hadn’t told me about these other links in the last few years, he had to have been ashamed of the connection and the problem was probably quite unsolvable.
Nicha shrugged but started talking. “I told you a while ago that I was negotiating a contract for a partnership for one child?”
Yes, he had spoken about that, at the time when I still feared that Thayu might be that person. Once it became clear that Thayu was his sister, the issue had been forgotten, and I had never heard him talk about it since.
“What happened?” Coldi partnership contracts were notoriously volatile. I’d seen that myself.
“Nothing. The woman was busy and I was busy and I didn’t feel like taking up the contract when there was so much happening around me. But we kept postponing the arrangements, but never cancelling the contract, so when I was at Asto and you told me to look for zhaymas I thought to visit her, because you and Thay’ were talking. . . .”
Yes, I’d talked about finding a donor so Thayu could have the second child she was entitled to, but likewise, I hadn’t done much more than request a list of potential candidates and interview a couple of candidates. That issue still sat in the back of my mind like a hot potato. I wanted to use Menor. Thayu had reservations. We’d had little time to discuss the matter. I felt guilty about it, but we were so busy.
And the fact that Nicha found this embarrassing to talk about was telling in itself. Coldi people were not easily embarrassed by bodily functions. Hell, they’d have sex at a party in front of all their friends and think nothing of it. Both genders joked about it even. Being embarrassed was an Earth reaction. A chilling thought: how much was Nicha struggling with Coldi customs? How much was my training at Athens also his training?
Holy shit.
“Anyway, I visited this woman—”
“I didn’t think the woman of your contract was Xinanu?” She didn’t strike me as someone who would patiently wait for years after signing the contract.
“No.” He looked at his hands.
“Then how did she come into the picture?”
Now he closed his eyes and breathed out, looking more intently at his hands. “It turned out that my contracted woman wanted to break the contract. There was a man who wanted to buy me out.”
I’d done that with Thayu, a fucking fortune it had cost me, too, but I ended up getting my money back, because I’d shot the guy over a different issue. “So you went to negotiate.”
“I thought it was only fair to her. Sorry, I know you don’t like this custom.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t like it, it was that I didn’t think he liked it either.
“To be honest, I felt really terrible after that. I’d wanted to ask if she could come to Barresh to have the baby. She was really nice and polite. You would not have had all the trouble with her and Eirani that you’re now having with Xinanu.”
Let’s not talk about Xinanu. The thought of her makes me grumpy. “So, what happened?”
“Well, I was lonely and I had a load of money. I was going to the Outer Circle bars to find zhaymas. Instead I got drunk. In fact, I got more drunk than I’ve been for a long time.”
“Not even the time when we went to Damarq and started drinking that . . . what was it called again?”
One corner of his mouth moved up. “Well, maybe as drunk as that.”
That was definitely not one of my most salubrious moments.
“Anyway, while
I was being an idiot, this most beautiful woman comes up to me, starts talking to me, because You look more intelligent than anyone else in this dump and anyway, to cut a long and shameful story short, I was too drunk to use my brain. She tricked me.”
Tricked you? But he wasn’t wearing his feeder. It would have been damn handy if he had worn it. On the other hand, I didn’t really need the feeder to figure it out.
“That was Xinanu?”
“Yes. She contacted me before I’d even left Asto. I’m having your child. Do you want to negotiate about it?”
I’d heard about these predators, usually women from lower families, who forced themselves into good contracts by feeding men liquor and seducing them. “But I don’t understand. Usually the women who do this need money. She doesn’t.”
“Those do it for money. Others for some kind of bought loyalty.”
“What, what, Nicha? Why haven’t you told us anything about this earlier?”
Shit. I’d worried about having an Azimi in the house in the form of that baby Xinanu carried. A boy, who would take his mother’s clan name. Turned out I needed to be worried about the rest of the clan first.
“I understand you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry. I’m trying to understand. We lived together. Hell, we shared the same bed at times. We were supposed to share everything. What’s happened, Nich’?” All my pronouns were accusatory. I breathed in to calm myself.
“I deserve your anger. I’m not proud of it.” He held his hands clasped together, the thumbs worrying at each other. “You haven’t heard the rest of the story yet.”
“You mean it gets worse?”
He nodded, once.
“All right then. Let’s have it.”
“Xinanu is Delegate Ayanu’s daughter.”
I sucked in a whistling breath. “You mean, she followed you into the bar with the specific reason of getting herself into our household?”
“That’s what it appears to be, yes.”
“And, it is Delegate Ayanu’s association that is causing the conflict in you?”
I was used to people spying and listening to every word we said. But these were people we knew and trusted, and I had never encountered such blatant infiltration from all directions. And I didn’t trust Delegate Ayanu. She was clearly trying to influence the outcome of the negotiations.
“I was in a loyalty network with her. Our mother is in it, too. It’s mostly a group of very ambitious people. But I’m not so involved anymore. I don’t really like her, but I have some ties because of my mother.”
“What’s the deal with your mother? I thought that you were trying to break free from her?”
“Yes, I was. I am. But if your father was very sick, wouldn’t you go back to him and give him some comfort, even if you didn’t like him very much?”
“Your mother is sick?”
He nodded, his lips pressed together. “Really not well at all. She’s been pulling in all her networks and all favours that people owe her. I told her gently that I wanted to break with Delegate Ayanu and that whole association and she said just this one thing and then you’re free to go.”
“And the one thing was?”
“She said, ‘Give this young fellow a chance. He’s been wandering around and getting into trouble.’ ”
“I’m guessing that would be Reida.”
“It was. I looked at his credentials and education and they were quite good.”
“But who is he, really?”
“He’s somewhere in the bottom of one of Delegate Ayanu’s associations. For some reason she took a liking to him—”
“Zeyshi? In her association?”
“He’s not zeyshi. He’s just dresses as one. He does the ignorant Outer Circle thing quite well. No, don’t look at me like that. He’s done some work for Delegate Ayanu and my mother. My mother works for—used to work for,” —his face took on a pained expression— “the water authority. Zeyshi live in the aquifers. That’s why he dresses as one of them.”
“You mean, he’s a spy!” I could hit myself in the head. I should have picked up on that. The boy was too pale, too fine-skinned, to be a desert dweller. He was too over the top in acting as a playboy.
I forced myself to calm down. All right, Reida was a spy. Deep inside, I’d known that.
“What does she want from having him in my household?”
“Information. Something to pin you down or Federza or the zeyshi delegation. Anyone. As long as Asto gets what it wants.”
This was not an uncommon practice amongst rival political camps. The fact that my household would become a focus point for this sort of jockeying shouldn’t surprise me. In fact, it didn’t surprise me, even if it surprised me what angle it came from.
“But. There is a but, right?”
Nicha nodded.
“Something went wrong?”
“I wouldn’t call it wrong. Reida was doing some larking and behaving stupidly while collecting general information about all the parties in the negotiations. Just the regular stuff. He found something. He started behaving strangely and wouldn’t tell me what it was. He said it was something that would be unwise to keep quiet, although nobody would like it. The more I pressured him on what it was, the more strangely he behaved. He said he didn’t want to hand it to Delegate Ayanu. I told him if that was what he believed, he shouldn’t.” He looked at his hands.
“Reida found that hard enough. He said that if he disobeyed her, his family might suffer. I said, if he told me I’d make sure his discovery would not fall in the wrong hands.”
“Did he show you?”
He nodded, but said nothing.
I prompted him. “What is it?”
“It’s bad. You’ll have to see it for yourself. I don’t want to say anything here because . . .” He gestured at the back of the room.
“All right. Let’s go and see it, then.” I rose.
He hesitated.
“We need to go to the hub, right?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“What?”
“You’re angry with me. You can tell me to . . . leave, you know.”
“Nicha, why would I do that? You grew up on Earth. You, of all people, know about forgiveness and friendship with no strings attached. That’s what I want from you, Nich’. Just be my friend. I understand how family can put pressure on you. What I heard, even about Xinanu or Reida, does not fall outside what I should have expected to happen to our association. We’re the target for a lot of spying and I should have been more vigilant. If you think you are failing at this, you don’t even begin to realise how much I am failing at it.”
“But you’re not—”
“You have the instinct. I’m doing everything blind.”
“You’re doing quite well. I’m messing everything up. I should have known better.”
“Your first concern should be your mother. How bad is she? Do you want some time to go over there?”
“She’s no longer working. She needs several expensive procedures. Some that are only available from the zeyshi.” He looked down. “You know, I sort of fell out with her a bit, but we’ve made up. I like her better than my father. She and Thayu are the only family I have.”
“I understand.”
He stared at his hands. His eyes glittered.
I reached out and touched his arm, realising how long it was that I’d last done this. I’d failed him more than anything. I’d allowed him to become isolated. “Hey, Nich’. It’s all right. We’re still here. We can defend ourselves. Make our association stronger.”
He nodded.
Next thing he hugged me so tight that I almost couldn’t breathe. He had not allowed his temperature to go down since his extensive visit to Asto, and the heat of it radiated through the palms of his hands.
We sat like that for quite a while. Eventually, I wormed myself out of his arms. I was getting too hot.
“Let’s go and look at this thing Reida has discovered.”
“All right.”
“No more secrets, especially not about something as important as having children.”
“Just promise me one thing, Cory.” He met my eyes in an intense look. “Take it to the assembly, this stuff that Reida found. Otherwise this problem will just continue to fester.”
“What about your link to Delegate Ayanu?”
He grimaced.
“Is it perhaps something you could raise with Ezhya that Asto’s delegate is blackmailing people?”
“Ezhya won’t listen to me as much as he listens to her. Ezhya might listen to you. As for me, I’m less than a slug to him. He wouldn’t listen to me if I stood in front of him holding a gun.”
Whoa, why suddenly all this bitterness in his voice? Having tasted the equality and democracy of the Earth system, was he bitter about the rigid Coldi associations where he’d started off as my zhayma ready to take on the universe, and ended up somewhere in the middle with trouble directed at him from both sides?
“I’ll raise it with him if you want.” But that wasn’t particularly helpful either. Any interclan networks needed to be discussed by the head of that clan. I was still feeling my way through the Domiri clan. Nicha was Palayi and the head of the Palayi clan was Ezhya. Dog, meet tail.
I pushed myself up. “We’ll find some sort of solution for the next month. Then the baby will have been born and your contract with Delegate Ayanu’s group will be finished.”
He nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I know. Well, I think I know. You grew up on Earth. You went to school, a pretty good one, too. You rubbed shoulders with the free thinkers and children of politicians and heads of state. Now you’ve come to this point in your life, and things are not going as you wanted. You find that the culture that’s supposed to be yours feels kind of alien. I know. I’ve felt the same my entire life. Nicha, the only thing I’m angry with is that you have said nothing about any of this before.”
He let his head hang further.
And I did something I’d sworn never to do. I reached out and pushed his chin up with my hand. It was such a patronising Coldi gesture that I’d often felt revolted when I saw it, let alone when people did it to me.
