“We are not,” whistled the mech decisively. “E’s certainly not ready for anything like that right now. If it’s something e’s even interested in.”
“Hah!” Ingray exclaimed. “You’ve got a thing for em!”
“Maybe instead we should talk about that young police officer who very obviously has a thing for you. She’s quite fetching in that uniform, I’m sure you’ve already noticed.”
Ingray refused to be embarrassed. “So what if I have? And it isn’t any of your business.”
“My point exactly,” returned the mech. “So where are we headed right now?”
“Home,” said Ingray. “I’ve checked with the staff, the ambassador is gone. And I want to talk to Hevom. Something’s wrong. I mean, there’s something more going on here: Nuncle has said it, Taucris has said it, and they’re right. I want to know what it is. Hevom probably won’t tell me anything, but I want to see what I can find out. And I want some lunch.”
“And after lunch, we go back to Planetary Safety and get Pahlad,” agreed Captain Uisine.
10
Ingray left the bag—the mech—in her room, and went looking for Hevom. She found him in the house’s little garden, sitting on a bench in the shade of the willow tree, staring blankly ahead. The very picture of emotional devastation.
She opened the windowed door, but instead of stepping out onto the mossy stone path she closed the door again and stood there. She told herself that she ought to just walk away. She could go to the kitchen; there would be people there, at least one or two servants who’d known her since she was a child, and she could say that she didn’t want to be alone right now, which she realized, staring out at the garden, was the truth. She could sit out of the way and have a cup of serbat and listen to the staff chat as they worked.
She had been moving more or less constantly, thinking constantly, calculating constantly, from the moment she’d awakened that morning. It was like working a meeting or a campaign event for Nuncle Lak—so many details to worry about and direct, not to mention possible bad outcomes to prevent, and all of it happening right now, no time to actually be worried or afraid about any of it, not till later, and then it was all done.
This wasn’t all done. But looking out at Hevom, sitting beside the tree—maybe it was seeing the tree, when all the morning’s talk of knives and spikes and who might or might not have killed Zat had not brought the image so vividly to her mind as it was now, of Zat motionless against the rovingtree, blood at the corner of her mouth. The seedpod fluttering down and brushing her unmoving face.
Ingray put her hand over her mouth. She didn’t want to think about that. Couldn’t.
Couldn’t stand the thought of Hevom in the garden, in her own house. Well, it was Netano’s house, and if it was politically advantageous to keep Hevom there, Netano would, no matter how many murders he might have committed. Ingray knew that. It had been a fact of her life for years. She had never questioned it.
She didn’t have to go out into the garden. She didn’t want to talk to Hevom. But she wanted to know, needed to know, why he’d done what he’d done. Needed more than guesses and theories. Because she couldn’t push it away anymore, the memory of Excellency Zat, leaning against the rovingtree. Dead.
What if Hevom hadn’t done it? But it had to have been him, no one else could have.
She lowered her hand from her mouth and took a deep breath. Opened the door again, and picked her way along the mossy stone path, and sat beside Hevom on the bench. He looked at her, briefly, and then away again.
“How are you doing, excellency?” she asked. Amazed at how steady her voice was, how pleasant her tone.
He was silent a moment, no change of expression. “As well as can be expected, I suppose.” Silence again. Then, “I couldn’t stand to stay in my room one more minute, but there’s nowhere else I’d want to go. Except home, of course.” He turned, then, to look at Ingray. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Everyone here has been very attentive.”
Yes, thought Ingray, of course they have. Because no matter what you may have done, for the moment it’s politically useful to pretend you haven’t done any of it. Sitting here, beside someone she was sure was an actual murderer, she remembered wondering if Garal—who she’d told herself at the time wasn’t Pahlad—had maybe murdered someone, to get emself sent to Compassionate Removal. It had seemed so abstract at the time. And, it turned out, e’d been sent to Compassionate Removal not for anything e had actually done, but because eir father had wanted to conceal what Pahlad had found.
She was horrified at what Hevom had done, and, yes, frightened to find herself sitting beside a murderer. And, she realized, she was angry. “I know this is a very difficult time for you,” she said, her voice smooth and concerned. “It can’t be easy to have actually killed someone, even if you hated them.” No reaction from Hevom, but her heart sped up, hearing herself make the accusation. Long practice at pretending to be calm and cheerful for the news services kept her voice steady, and her tone sympathetic. “There are a few things I don’t understand, though. Why did you do it to begin with? I know you hated her, but that’s not enough of a reason.” Hevom turned his face away again, stared ahead. Ingray continued. “And why did you use the knife? You could have killed her just with those spikes. So why stab her with the knife, and then hide it in the mech and put the mech in the river?” Still no answer. A breeze set the willow branches waving, and speckles of sunlight and shadow danced across the stones. “And why is the Federacy so insistent on getting you back to Omkem so quickly?”
“Is this what passes for a murder investigation here?” Hevom asked, still staring away. “No wonder the consul is so insistent on getting me away. I knew Hwaeans were credulous and uncultured, and of course what you call law enforcement here is a joke anywhere civilized, but I hadn’t realized you were quite that bad.”
Ingray couldn’t find an answer to that, not right away. Though she could smile and look as though nothing troubled her for hours on end, she had never been good at the instant, witty reply. “And why are you trying to pin the murder on Pahlad? E never did anything to you. E’s in enough trouble as it is, why are you trying to get em killed for what you did?” Hevom didn’t answer. “There’s so much about this that doesn’t make sense. I’d just like to know what’s going on.”
“No doubt you would,” he observed drily. As though he actually found it amusing. “I don’t much care what happens to Pahlad Budrakim. And neither does anyone else here.”
Ah. And that was why pin it on Pahlad. All the individual steps made sense—the plan to murder; the murder itself, except for the knife, and maybe that made sense when you added Pahlad in. Maybe seeing Pahlad—had Hevom recognized em? Or just seen someone who was apparently without wealth or family who Planetary Safety might happily assume was guilty? Or had the knife been meant to throw suspicion on anyone at all in Netano’s house, but when Pahlad’s identity was revealed, e became the obvious target? It all hung together. The only part that was missing was that very first step: why do it at all?
“You must really have hated Excellency Zat,” observed Ingray. “It can’t have been the only reason you killed her, as I said, but you’d never have done it unless you hated her. Why? I know you had political differences, but that’s not enough to want her dead, is it? I know she was, what, an affine?” The word didn’t quite translate into Bantia, or Yiir for that matter, where it would have meant the relatives of parents your siblings didn’t share with you. “Surely you can talk about her now she’s dead.”
On the bench beside her, Hevom stiffened. Turned to look at her, indignant anger on his face. “You have absolutely no understanding of common decency, do you.”
It hadn’t been the accusation of murder that caused that reaction. It was something else—could he be offended at the idea of talking directly about Excellency Zat, even now when she was dead, and moreover he had certainly killed her?
“Well, I am credulous and uncultured, a
fter all,” Ingray said, not quite believing the words had left her mouth.
Hevom made a disgusted noise and turned away again.
A thudding crack startled Ingray, set her heart racing. She turned. A large, quivering, many-eyed black spider mech came lurching through the suddenly open door out onto the mossy stones. “Ingray Aughskold!” it whistled. “I see you, Ingray Aughskold! You have tried to hide from me the person called Garal Ket, but you have failed. I know where this person is. You will take me to Garal Ket!”
“Am … Ambassador?” She had been so absorbed in her distress at talking to Hevom that she had forgotten that she and Tic had planned exactly this. Her startlement was real, and for a moment she wasn’t certain this wasn’t the ambassador herself.
“Garal Ket!” the mech insisted, and knocked one claw on the stone in front of it.
It had to be Tic. And really, if it was actually the ambassador, how bad could that be? “Of course, Ambassador.” Ingray stood, and turned to Hevom, who was staring at the spider mech. “If you’ll excuse me, Excellency Hevom, I find I have urgent business elsewhere.” Hevom looked at her, and back at the spider mech, but still said nothing. “Follow me, Ambassador.”
“Where is the brother, Danach?” asked the spider mech. “I will not be deceived again, with the jacket.”
Ingray frowned. Sent a quick, silent message to the household staff. “I don’t know where Danach is.” The reply to Ingray’s question appeared in her vision—Danach had gone out, and would be gone several days. He had not said where he was going. Did Ingray need help? Should the staff call Planetary Safety?
Whatever Danach might be doing wasn’t her concern. She blinked a reassurance to the staff and requested the groundcar again. “As far as I can tell, Ambassador, Danach is quite far away. Let’s go out front and wait for the groundcar, and I’ll take you right to Garal Ket.”
Deputy Chief Veret took one look at the Geck ambassador—or at the mech that apparently was the Geck ambassador—and called Nuncle Lak.
Less than ten minutes later, Ingray, the mech, and the deputy chief were in a meeting room nearly identical to the one in Netano’s local office, except the walls were light blue, and the chairs and table an easily cleaned and less luxurious flat black. The deputy chief sat in one chair, Ingray in another, the spider mech on the floor between them, its eyestalks pointing some at Ingray, some at the deputy chief, and some at Nuncle Lak on the display wall, eir own chairs and table now the same black, the wall behind em blue.
“I’ve left a message for the Extra-Hwae Relations Office,” Deputy Chief Veret said to em, “but they haven’t replied.”
“They will,” said Nuncle Lak. E looked at the spider mech. “Ambassador, I’m sorry but the deputy chief can’t just release a prisoner to you. There are procedures for this sort of thing. And besides, Garal Ket is human, and a citizen of Hwae. This is a human matter, and a matter of Hwaean law, and with the greatest respect, Ambassador, you have no grounds to demand that e be turned over to you.”
The mech did not move. “I listen,” it whispered. “Garal Ket is not a citizen of Hwae. Garal Ket is not Garal Ket. Garal Ket is a person who is dead, and if that person is dead e does not exist anymore. Humans exist. A person who does not exist is not human.”
Deputy Chief Veret frowned. “But e very obviously does exist. And it’s not always the case here, Ambassador, that someone who is dead doesn’t exist anymore.”
“But it’s the case for Garal,” said Ingray. “Or for Pahlad, I mean. Isn’t it? E didn’t get anyone’s name but eirs, and didn’t give eir name to anyone.” And even if e had, eir going to Compassionate Removal would have made that irrelevant.
Nuncle Lak gave Ingray a calculating look. “But e’s not actually dead, Ingray. And even so, whoever e is now e came into Hwaean space on false pretenses and is breaking the law just by being here.”
“The Geck will apologize for this,” whispered the spider mech. “And pay a fine. At Tyr Siilas we were told that payment resolves all such difficulties.”
“That was Tyr, Ambassador,” said Deputy Chief Veret. “Our legal system doesn’t work that way.”
“And there is still the matter of the Omkem Federacy,” Nuncle Lak put in, “who are also demanding custody of Garal Ket, so that they can try em for the murder of Excellency Zat. We’ve given them the same answer. The Deputy Chief of Serious Crimes can’t just let prisoners go to anyone who asks for them. You’ll have to pursue litigation, Ambassador.”
The spider mech knocked a claw on the pale yellow tiled floor. “You hold a person who belongs to the Geck. This is a violation of the treaty. Do not argue with me about the treaty. This Garal Ket is a person who belongs nowhere human. I now declare that e belongs to the Geck. If you give Garal Ket to these Omkem you will violate the treaty. Do not argue with me about the treaty. You do not know its contents better than I.”
“I’m not sure it works that way,” said Nuncle Lak.
The spider mech raised its body up several centimeters and pointed one claw at the image of Nuncle Lak on the wall. “Do. Not. Argue. With me. About. The treaty.”
A soft tone sounded, and another person appeared on the display wall, standing beside Nuncle Lak, a person wearing all white: white coat, somewhat rumpled, as though it had been folded for a very long time and only recently taken out; white trousers, white shoes. White gloves. Their dark hair was short enough to stick up, haphazard, all over their head. Her head—those gloves meant Radchaai, and at least in Bantia, Radchaai were conventionally called she. This person seemed disconcertingly uncategorizable, not a man or a woman or a neman. “Hello?” she said, in heavily accented Yiir. “Oh, there you are, I couldn’t see you at first. Hello. I am Tibanvori Nevol.” She sighed, weirdly incongruous with the Radchaai accent that made her sound like a villain in a melodramatic entertainment. “I am the human ambassador to the Geck.” She sounded unconvinced of that. No, she sounded as though she were reading out something she didn’t entirely understand. She probably didn’t speak Yiir very well and was using some sort of translation device.
“Thank you for joining us, Ambassador Nevol,” said Deputy Chief Veret.
The ambassador sighed again. “Tibanvori. And I’m not an ambassador, I’m an ambassa … oh, this thing is hopeless. And I can’t help you. I’ve tried to explain but no one is listening to me. I don’t have any control over this situation. I don’t know why the Geck ambassador is so … so fixated on this runaway mech-pilot.” She sighed again. “I can’t blame her for running away; if it were me I’d put as much distance between me and the Geck homeworld as I could.”
“Her?” asked Ingray.
“Her. Him. Em.” The emissary made an exasperated noise. “Whatever. And when we were at Tyr Siilas, we learned that Pilot Uisine had claimed Tyr citizenship. Which was entirely within …” She winced. “His? Rights, under the treaty. The Geck no longer have any authority over … him. The pilot. The captain now, I suppose. Though actually she … he did steal that ship. More than one. It caused quite a lot of inconvenience, actually.” Ambassador Tibanvori smiled, just a bit, as though the memory of it was amusing to her. “But the Geck ambassador knows this. She knows the treaty as well as anyone does, and she must know she has no legal grounds for pursuing this pilot. She might be able to file a petition for compensation for the stolen ships with the Tyr Executory, which has been suggested to the ambassador, by people she ordinarily will listen to.” Ambassador Tibanvori made an odd, shoving-away gesture with one gloved hand, as though she were pushing the entire matter away from her. “I myself am not one of those people. So there’s really no point to my being here.”
“It’s kind of you to take the time, in any case,” said Nuncle Lak. “Perhaps since you’re here, you could answer some questions for us. You must know the treaty fairly well, yourself, I think.” Ambassador Tibanvori made a gesture that Nuncle Lak took for assent. “Her Excellency the Geck ambassador to the Presger is making the claim that a particular Hw
aean citizen actually falls under Geck authority.”
Ambassador Tibanvori rolled her eyes and made an exasperated noise. “I don’t know what the ambassador is playing at. No Hwaean could possibly be a Geck citizen.”
“This is an unusual case, Ambassador,” Ingray said. “The person was a Hwaean citizen, but e’s been declared legally dead. E wasn’t supposed to ever be able to come back to Hwae, but e has, with an illegally obtained false identity.”
The emissary frowned. “So e holds no citizenship anywhere? E has no legal existence as a human?”
“Basically,” agreed Ingray, ignoring Nuncle Lak’s sharp look in her direction.
Ambassador Tibanvori’s frown deepened. She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Huh. Well. In that case, it seems to me that if this person declares emself Geck, and the Geck will have em, e can probably be Geck. Why e would ever want to is beyond me, though.”
“But there’s more to it,” said Deputy Chief Veret. “This person is currently under arrest on suspicion of murder. Of the murder of a citizen of the Omkem Federacy, in fact, and the Omkem are demanding e be turned over to them.”
“E didn’t do it!” protested Ingray. She looked at the deputy chief. “You know e didn’t do it.”
“Well that’s a relief,” said Ambassador Tibanvori. “Because if e had, and e’s Geck, that would have been a violation of the treaty. I honestly don’t see what your problem is here. Give the actual murderer to the, who are they, the Omkem? And give this other person to the Geck. Simple enough.”
“Thank you, Ambassador,” said Nuncle Lak. “You’ve been very helpful.”
When the ambassador had disappeared from the display, the spider mech, which had sat still and silent at Ingray’s feet this whole while, said, “Give us Garal Ket.” Not acknowledging the recent presence of the human ambassador at all.