by Ann Leckie
Two more mechs waited farther in, past the vestiges of the lareum’s former chief caretakers, past the wide strip of linen on which the lareum’s charter had been written in the hand of the Prolocutor of the First Assembly at the time. Past the kiosk that, for a fee, would print out a numbered and dated entry card. For a moment Ingray wondered if the hulking, armed mechs would let her stop at the kiosk. Surely a vestige of this occasion would be worth something—Danach would no doubt pay her good money for it. It would be worth more with some kind of personal impression, though. She should sign the card, and get the Omkem to do so as well. She imagined one of these big gray military mechs, holding the thin cardboard with one appendage and a brush with another, and a giant gun in the third, and bit her lip to keep from giggling. Or from crying, she wasn’t sure which. Tic should sign it, too. Was he nearby, even if she couldn’t see any sign of a spider mech? But no, he’d said he would find a different way in.
Off to the side of the kiosk, a jumbled heap of blue-and-purple sticks and boxes. No, it was a half dozen or more lareum guide mechs, smashed to pieces. She didn’t think they were the sort of mech that was ever controlled remotely, but the Omkem weren’t taking any chances, it appeared.
“Ingray Aughskold,” said one of the waiting mechs, “come this way.” In almost impenetrably accented Bantia, which Ingray thought was odd. The mech behind her had spoken in Yiir, and all the Omkem she’d ever met had spoken Yiir and almost never Bantia.
But none of that mattered. She followed, not looking to see if the mech from the entrance came behind her.
The mech brought her directly to the center of the lareum, a long, wide hall lined with vestiges of Hwae’s founding, paper or linen or groupings of clay tiles on the dark green walls, and between them, or dotted along the length of the hall, the sort of vestiges that did not hang well: cups, serbat decanters, a necklace or two, even a pair of sandals, all cased in glass and standing on plinths.
At the far end of the hall the Rejection of Further Obligations hung, suspended vertically in a clear case that rested on its own long, low diorite plinth. From this angle, walking down the length of the hall, Ingray could only see it edge-on but she could recite the words painted on it without even half a thought. Let this document certify that the Assembled Representatives of the People of Hwae … It was those words that mattered, wasn’t it? Even if Garal was right and this particular document was a fake.
Full of vestiges as it was, and signs and notices so that even children could understand what they were visiting, the long room seemed oddly empty without the overlays of text and images that Ingray would have seen if she were connected to Hwae’s communications network. She found herself blinking to summon them, but of course nothing happened. She’d cut off her own access before coming here, but she knew from the news service reports that there were no communications coming from the prisoners in the lareum. No doubt the Omkem had managed to prevent it somehow.
There were five mechs here, two like the ones Ingray had already seen, one at each entrance to the room, and a third in the center of the hall, standing over two people who sat on the buff-tiled floor, watching her approach. One of those people, a stout, gray-haired neman, Ingray recognized immediately as the Prolocutor of the First Assembly, Prolocutor Dicat. The other, much younger, not much older than Ingray in fact, thinner but obviously taller even sitting, was … it took Ingray a moment to place her. Yes, she was the appointed heir of the senior keeper of post-Tyr vestiges.
Near the end of the Rejection’s case stood two smaller mechs that looked more like humans than machines. They both turned toward Ingray as she approached. “Miss Aughskold,” said one. “Please stay where you are.” In Bantia.
She stopped. The smaller of the two more humanlike mechs walked toward her. It didn’t move like a mech at all, and she realized that it wasn’t, that neither of them was a mech. They were both humans in dark gray armor. Like a lot of Omkem they were much taller than Ingray was used to, and the armor gave them an intimidating bulk besides.
The second armored human said something Ingray couldn’t understand.
“Miss Aughskold,” said the first, still in Bantia, “would you please remove your hairpins?”
“Certainly,” Ingray replied. Her voice didn’t even shake the tiniest bit, she was glad to hear. She pulled out her hairpins and held them out to the armored person who’d spoken to her. “What should I do with them?”
The first armored person spoke again. She wasn’t sure what language it might be.
“Please set them on the floor, Miss Aughskold,” said the other, “and step away from them.”
She bent to lay the pins on the floor, then straightened. She had a little travel translation utility that supposedly functioned away from Hwae’s network. She’d used it a few times during her stay on Tyr Siilas. It wasn’t very good, and she hadn’t had a chance to load it with a dictionary, but maybe she could still use it. Maybe it would recognize this language. It would be better than nothing.
The first armored person stared at the small pile of hairpins, then spoke. “Floor them apart,” said a flat voice in Ingray’s ear.
The second bent and tried to scoop up the pins, but three of them tumbled out of their armored hand. “Fiddlesticks,” they said. According to the translation utility, anyway. The armor on their hands retracted, disappearing somewhere into the figure’s arms. Then they reached up and pulled off their head—no, pulled off a helmet. Revealing a pale-skinned man with thick dark hair and a genial expression. “I don’t know how these soldiers do this.” And, to a disapproving exclamation from the first armored figure, “Fie, Commander. Absence was your own mouth. I absent soldier.” He scooped up the hairpins in his bare hand, stood, and smiled at Ingray. “Excuse me a moment, Miss Aughskold. Please stay right there.” He went, then, over to one of the mechs at the nearer entrance, which popped open a wide panel in the side of its body, and the man dropped the hairpins inside and pushed the panel closed again. Came back over to Ingray. “Please don’t be afraid. There’s no reason this has to be unpleasant.”
“I wasn’t afraid, until you said that,” replied Ingray.
He made a small huh. Not a laugh, not quite. “The commander and I have a few things to discuss. But can I ask you a question? Do you think this”—he gestured to the Rejection of Obligations—“is genuine?”
“I … I’ve always thought it was.” Ingray supposed she should be glad to have such immediate confirmation of her guess that the Federacy troops, denied control of the First Assembly, had turned their attention to Hwae’s most important vestiges. Even after the things Garal had said, the Rejection of Obligations was still very nearly the most important vestige in the system.
He turned to the commander. “Perceive. As my own mouth.”
“In the ordinary remain,” said the commander. “The ordinary is not. The attention is, the argument is prolocutor. Doubt required and the level lowered. I theorize look elsewhere.”
“Remain,” said the man who had spoken to Ingray in Bantia. “Insufficiency the days before, insufficiency this moment.”
“Who are you?” she asked the man. “And why are you doing this?”
“My name is Chenns. I’m a … you would say I was an ethnographer. I specialize in Hwaean cultures. And that”—he gestured toward the other armored figure—“is Commander Hatqueban. And as for what we’re doing here, I’m surprised to hear you of all people ask that question, Miss Aughskold. I knew Excellency Zat. I can’t say I liked her much. She was quite arrogant, and contemptuous of those she considered her inferiors. She was absolutely convinced of the most ridiculous historical theories. Though to be frank, I wince at dignifying them with the word theory. She promoted these ridiculous ideas, and convinced others—or forced them—to invest time and valuable resources attempting to prove them. But she didn’t deserve to die.”
“No, she didn’t,” Ingray agreed. “But this isn’t really about Zat. For one thing, Excellency Zat has only b
een dead a few days, and the ship you probably came on had to have started out weeks ago. And for another, it was Zat’s affine Hevom who killed her. None of us here has anything to do with that, except for them both having stayed at my mother’s house.”
“Excellency Hevom doesn’t deserve to be condemned for a murder he surely didn’t commit,” continued Excellency Chenns, as though Ingray hadn’t spoken. “Your own Planetary Safety arrested Pahlad Budrakim for Zat’s murder. What’s more likely, that an escaped convicted criminal killed her, or that her own affine, who couldn’t touch her, couldn’t even speak to her, did it? And I know the ruin glass is mostly just a nuisance or a curiosity or a building material to you, but Zat’s crackpot theories about the origins of that glass had political implications. Implications that would offend most Hwaeans.”
“Yes,” Ingray agreed, “she wanted to prove that Hwae was the original home of the Omkem. Or at least the original home of the Omkem who were related to her. I know. She told me. But it’s a crackpot theory, as you’ve said yourself. She could have dug up every piece of ruin glass on the planet and not proved it.”
“She’d have made whatever she did find fit whatever suited her,” Chenns replied. “And there would have been repercussions in the Federacy. Believe me, Miss Aughskold, it was always about convincing possible allies in the Federacy. Convincing Hwaeans wasn’t ever the point. Zat couldn’t have cared less what Hwaeans thought, except where it might get her what she wanted. I can’t imagine your mother didn’t realize that when she invited Zat to stay with her.”
No, Ingray couldn’t imagine it, either. What had her mother been doing? But then, refusing to let Zat dig up the parkland might only have allowed Zat to cry conspiracy, where the actual results of the digging might well speak for themselves. “Listen to me,” Ingray said. “I was there that day. I was there when Zat died. She went up the hill—you know the one with all the glass down to the river, it’s in all the pictures of the parkland. She went up there to have a view, I suppose, while she sent her little Uto mech searching for whatever it might find on the surface.” Which would have been precious little. “She went up the hill, and sat down, and nobody went near her until lunchtime and I went up to get her because she wasn’t answering messages, and she was …” Ingray stopped. And she was dead. Chenns watched her, saying nothing. “Garal … Pahlad Budrakim, but I didn’t know that’s who e was then, was with me the entire time. And don’t tell me e was piloting a mech. E wasn’t, I was talking to em the whole time, and the only mech that went up the hill was Uto. Garal doesn’t have the right implants to pilot a Federacy-made mech. The only person nearby who did was Hevom. And Hevom was the only person nearby who hated Zat enough to kill her. I was there.”
Excellency Chenns just looked at her, frowning slightly, and said nothing.
“Why did she even bring Hevom along? They couldn’t speak to each other; it would have been better to bring an assistant she could actually talk to, who didn’t resent her so much.”
Chenns grimaced. “It was cruel of Zat to make him come along. More cruel than I think you can understand. Some of Hevom’s senior relatives had defied Zat’s family over a, I guess you would say a political matter. The … the affinage I guess you would say”—the word he used was an awkward coinage, a Yiir word with an unaccustomed element pasted on—“was meant to settle the consequent dispute, but Zat herself did what she could to make its terms as humiliating as possible to Hevom’s family. Hevom made the mistake of protesting. Zat compelled him to come as a sort of lesson, for him and for his relatives.”
“That sounds like a motive to me,” said Ingray. “And once he’d resolved to kill her, it was easy enough to pin the murder on an innocent Hwaean. After all, we’re …” How had Hevom said it? “Ignorant and uncultured, and our legal system is a joke. So are our lives, it seems.”
Excellency Chenns sighed. “I wouldn’t exactly call Pahlad Budrakim innocent.”
“Eir name is Garal Ket now. And e didn’t kill Zat. I was there.” And it was beside the point anyway. The Federacy couldn’t have Garal, because Garal was Geck now. And none of this was happening because of Zat, or Hevom. These people, these mechs and soldiers, had shipped through the Enthen/Hwae gate long before any of it had happened.
Unless of course someone knew ahead of time that Zat would die and Hevom would be accused of the murder.
“You still don’t understand,” said Chenns. “You can’t. Murdering Zat would have been literally unthinkable for someone in Hevom’s position. Even if I try to explain it to you, you wouldn’t understand, because your families don’t work that way. Imagine … imagine someone killing their parent.”
“Someone might call that unthinkable,” replied Ingray. “I can’t even imagine what sort of person would kill a parent. But it’s happened.”
Excellency Chenns looked over his shoulder at the still-armored commander, then back at Ingray. “You’re here, Miss Aughskold, because of your involvement with Zat’s death. Commander Hatqueban would never have agreed to the exchange otherwise. She’ll want to speak to you directly about it. Not now, at the moment there are more pressing issues, but sometime soon. She doesn’t speak Bantia at all”—Ingray had already guessed as much—“and her Yiir isn’t very good. She has a translation utility, it’s not bad really, but she doesn’t quite trust it, so I’ll be there to translate for her if she feels she needs it.”
“Is she related to Zat, too?” asked Ingray, as innocently as she could manage.
“No,” said Chenns. Did Ingray detect some chagrin? “She’s related to Hevom. She won’t appreciate you dragging her … cousin, I suppose is best. She won’t appreciate you dragging her cousin’s name through the mud.”
“Chosen especially for this mission, was she?” asked Ingray. “What an incredible coincidence.”
Some reaction Ingray couldn’t quite read crossed Chenns’s face. But he only said, “Go sit down with the others, Miss Aughskold.”
“Whoever planned this didn’t care much about what happened to Hevom,” said Ingray. “I suppose they promised him they’d get him out of it, but you’d think they’d have given him better resources to do it with.” If this were an entertainment, Hevom would have come with forged evidence, with a way to put fake fingerprints or DNA on the knife, and to place falsely incriminating messages in the system for Planetary Safety to find and eventually unravel. The Federacy could probably do some of that, if not all, with enough planning. If they thought it would be worth it. Hevom apparently wasn’t.
“Sit down, Miss Aughskold,” Chenns said again. “I don’t want to have to resort to threats.”
“That’s all right, excellency,” said Ingray, with as false a smile as she’d ever managed in her life. “The commander and her soldiers will be happy to do it for you.” And still smiling she turned away from him, from the Rejection, and walked unhurriedly over to where the two other Hwaeans sat, not to give the impression that she was unafraid and unintimidated, but because if she moved too quickly she’d be unable to stop herself from running in panic. And because the more deliberately she moved, the more she might be able to conceal the fact that she was trembling with fear.
17
Ingray sat down between the Prolocutor of the First Assembly and the senior keeper of post-Tyr vestiges, pretending to ignore the armed four-legged mech standing over them. The young vestige keeper gave her a glance, and then stared straight ahead.
“Well,” said Prolocutor Dicat. “Netano’s well out of it. And she gets to personally deliver the children safely back to their crèches. Though it’s not as if the Omkem weren’t going to let them go at the first opportunity. They cried and sniffled and had to go to the bathroom every few minutes and of course the Omkem couldn’t just let them run around loose. We’re lucky the commander over there wasn’t ruthless enough to just shoot them all, because not one of them had influential families to make up for the trouble of keeping them. But Netano will get to play the hero for the news services,
and no doubt if anything happens to you she’ll get some extra sympathy come election time. You can’t possibly be her own offspring, let alone a foster from one of her cousins or prominent supporters. Only a child from a public crèche could be so easily sacrificed. Or so willing to go along with it. They’re the only ones who don’t have anywhere else to go.”
So easily sacrificed. Well, it was true, and Ingray had known as much for most of her life. I won’t forget this, her mother had said. Ingray knew she had meant it. Knew, also, that Netano would wrest whatever political advantage she could out of Ingray being here, whether she survived or not.
She wanted to protest at the no-doubt-intended insult. And the disdainful assessment of the crèche children. But if she opened her mouth to say something indignant, she would probably scream, or start to cry. Instead she said, as sweetly as she could, “It’s so good to meet you, Prolocutor.” And closed her mouth on anything else that might want to come out.
On Ingray’s other side the keeper of post-Tyr vestiges began to weep silently. After a few minutes, Prolocutor Dicat snapped, “Oh, do stop sniveling. You’re as bad as the children and it won’t do anything except get things wet and annoy the rest of us.”
Ingray leaned toward the keeper of post-Tyr vestiges. “I’m Ingray Aughskold. I think we’ve met once or twice before.”
