Nuncle Lak said, “Ambassador, please understand, we still can’t just release em to you. There are procedures to follow. And the Omkem demand is still an issue here. You’ll have to make a formal request, and the authorities will have to make an official ruling. The deputy chief will assist you in filing that request, and I’ll be more than happy to make sure myself that the committee knows they need to consider it alongside the Omkem request for custody. It seems likely to me that the committee will rule just as Ambassador Tibanvori has suggested, but these things take time.”
“Delay delay delay,” whispered the spider mech.
“I’m sorry, Ambassador,” said Nuncle Lak. “But there’s really no other way to make this happen.”
“Very well, then,” whispered the spider mech. “But now I will speak with Garal Ket.”
In the prisoner visiting room, Pahlad appeared to be utterly unsurprised at the presence of the Geck ambassador. Though e had no doubt had the walk from wherever he was being held to the meeting room to compose emself. “Ingray,” e said, with a small nod. “Deputy Chief. And Ambassador, I’m honored. What can I do for you?” And before anyone could reply, e added, “I’m afraid, Ambassador, that I have no idea where Captain Uisine is. So I won’t be able to help you with that.”
The spider mech waved a claw, then pointed it at Pahlad. “You are Geck,” it said.
Pahlad blinked, visibly surprised for just a moment, and then the expression was gone. “Am I?”
“You are,” insisted the mech.
“It’s complicated,” said Deputy Chief Veret.
“I remember Captain Uisine saying that,” Pahlad said. “If I remember his remarks correctly, I’m guessing that the fact that my legal status with a human polity is … ambiguous suggests that under the treaty I might be able to claim citizenship with the Geck? Is that what’s happening here?”
“It is,” Ingray said.
Pahlad’s mouth twitched, and e bit eir lip and turned eir head away, as though e was about to smile broadly, or even laugh, and didn’t want anyone to see it. After a few moments e looked at the ambassador again. “I take it you plan to file a petition to have me released into your custody, since because I am a Geck citizen who’s broken no laws Planetary Safety has no authority over me.”
“There’s the false identity,” Deputy Chief Veret said.
“That’s minor, really,” Ingray said. “And the ambassador has already offered to apologize for that and pay a fine.”
“It’s up to the committee,” the deputy chief said, firmly.
“This person called Garal Ket is Geck,” said the spider mech. “Say it, Garal Ket.”
“I am Geck,” said Pahlad. “And it’s true I came into the system with a false identity. I apologize for that. It was wrong, and I shouldn’t have done it. I haven’t broken any other laws.”
“You came back from Compassionate Removal,” pointed out the deputy chief.
“No one comes back from Compassionate Removal.” Pahlad’s voice was bland and even, but Ingray thought she heard just the slightest edge to it. “To enter Compassionate Removal is to die, to lose even the possibility of your name continuing. I can’t possibly be the person you seem to think I am.”
Silence for a moment. Then the deputy chief said, “If you got out, if you came back, who else has?”
“That does appear to be a potential problem for you, Deputy Chief. But since I’m Geck, it doesn’t matter very much to me personally.”
“Delay delay delay,” whispered the spider mech. “Garal Ket is Geck. E has said so emself. I have said so. Now tell this committee, and give me Garal Ket.”
Deputy Chief Veret sighed. “If you’ll come back to my office, Ambassador, I can put you in contact with the committee and get your petition filed with them. As I said I would.” E frowned then. “But I don’t like this. The laws are there for people’s safety. They aren’t meant to be played with, or bent for your convenience.”
“You’re right, Deputy Chief.” Pahlad’s expression didn’t change, but eir voice was almost regretful. “They aren’t meant to be bent for people’s convenience, but they are. It happens all the time, it probably always has and probably always will. And in this case, I imagine it will solve one or two problems facing you right now. It does clear up the question of just what to do with me, doesn’t it.”
“It does,” Deputy Chief Veret admitted. “But I don’t have to like it.”
“No.” Pahlad’s voice was still regretful. “You’re an honest neman. Honest enough, I hope, to keep asking those questions about Compassionate Removal.”
The deputy chief looked at Pahlad for several seconds, silent. Then e said, “Ambassador, if you’ll come with me.” And turned and left the room.
Halfway through the process of composing the petition, Taucris came to Ingray where she sat in a chair in the corner of the deputy chief’s office, handed her a cup of serbat, and whispered, “Ingray, have you eaten?” And Ingray suddenly realized how late in the day it was, nearly suppertime, and she’d barely had even a moment to herself. To just sit still. And yes, to eat.
Deputy Chief Veret, who had been explaining a detail of the petition process to the spider mech, looked up. “We’re going to be a while, Miss Aughskold. And you don’t need to stay for this.”
“Yes, yes,” whispered the spider mech, waving a hairy leg. “I will stay here with Garal Ket. You go.”
Ingray should stay. She should make sure everything happened the way it ought to; she couldn’t just leave Tic here by himself, pretending to be the Geck ambassador.
She really wanted to be by herself somewhere, for just a few minutes. To close her eyes and not do anything in particular. “Call me if you need me.”
The deputy chief gestured assent. The spider mech waved its leg again. Taucris said, half hesitant, “Let’s go get something to eat.”
11
Taucris brought Ingray to a small courtyard, a few plastic benches and tables here and there, black walls relieved by a thick fall of leaves and tiny white flowers cascading down a trellis. “Thank you,” said Ingray as she sat down on the nearest bench.
“You’re welcome,” said Taucris, sitting beside her with a small smile. “You looked like you needed a break. This is all very strange. Why do the Geck want Pahlad so badly?”
“I suppose the ambassador has decided I’m not going to help her find Captain Uisine, so she’s going to see if Pahlad will.”
A spindly mech came tottering into the courtyard with two boxes. Taucris took them, handed one to Ingray, and shooed the mech away. “It doesn’t make much sense,” she said. “Then again, she is an alien.” She opened her own box and the smell of fried spiced beans wafted out. “But if she’s an alien, why is she she? I mean, aliens won’t work like humans, right?”
“I don’t know,” said Ingray, opening her own box and picking up a round of breaded and fried mashed beans. “Maybe it’s because she has to speak Yiir. We don’t have Geck words for things because we’re not Geck, so that’s the best she can do. Although.” She took a bite. “Oh, this is delicious.”
“It’s from a place around the corner,” Taucris said. “Try the sauce, it’s really good.”
“Although,” Ingray continued, dipping the round in the well of sauce, “Captain Uisine said the ambassador had had lots of different pronouns in the time he’d known her, she was just she right now.”
“They change?” asked Taucris, leaning slightly forward, food forgotten. Her straight dark hair, curling just a bit at the ends, still growing out of child-short, slid forward to rest on her cheek.
Ingray suppressed an urge to brush it back. Took another bite of food. “This is so good.”
“Isn’t it?” Suddenly Taucris seemed to realize how close her face was to Ingray’s. She straightened and looked down at her food. Looked up again. “Nana’s always been one of Netano’s supporters, so of course I grew up thinking of Ethiat Budrakim as a liar. Untrustworthy. But I never …” She
picked up a fried round, then put it back down again. “I never imagined he’d throw his own child into Compassionate Removal to keep a political advantage. And such a small one!”
“The last prolocutorial election was awfully close,” said Ingray. Wondering, as she said it, how it was that Taucris suddenly seemed so … attractive. But then, Ingray hadn’t seen Taucris as an adult until yesterday. And not just adult but confident, sure in a way Ingray had never noticed before. “If word about the Garseddai vestiges had cost him just a small percentage of the votes, Netano would be prolocutor now. That’s not a small advantage.”
“It’s not enough to throw your child away for,” insisted Taucris. “As much as I know I’ve disappointed my nother, I don’t think e would ever do anything like that to me.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, until the boxes were empty even of crumbs. “You know, sometimes I feel sorry for Danach.”
“Sorry for him!” Ingray was astonished.
“I’ve known since I was little that I was a foster-child,” Taucris explained. “That my biological family gave me up. They probably only had me so they could foster me with Nana, because that was a connection that might get them something. Well, they already have quite a lot to begin with, right? Because you can’t just show up at Nana’s door with a baby like that. But, you know. They could have kept me but they didn’t. It doesn’t really matter, because Nana is my nother. Not because I showed I was worthy or anything, just because I’m eir child. I never worried I wouldn’t be good enough to stay in the family. Danach, he has another family, too, and he hardly knows them. And they never really wanted him, they just wanted Netano to foster one of their children. But I think he’s always afraid that if he messes up, he’ll be out, and he has nowhere to go but back to the family that never wanted him to begin with, except as an investment that didn’t pay off. Or, he could go out entirely on his own, but either way he doesn’t like not being important. He’s expected all his life that he would be important.”
“At least he’d have somewhere to go,” Ingray said, unable to keep some bitterness out of her voice. She herself had no one but the Aughskolds. She had lost even the small promise of friendly crèchemates long ago. She took a breath and focused on steadying her voice. “Besides, it’s not like there’s any question. He’s going to be the next Netano.”
“Maybe,” said Taucris. “Probably. It seems like it. But what if Netano doesn’t choose the way everyone expects her to? Or, you know, what if she does but Danach still worries about it?” Ingray didn’t answer, and after a few moments Taucris took Ingray’s empty box and said, “I think I should tell you that Danach has gone to Eswae.”
“What?” She wasn’t sure if she was more surprised by Danach going to Eswae or by Taucris knowing that.
“We’re keeping an eye on everyone in your household right now.” With her free hand she made an indefinite gesture. “We want to be sure we’re not missing anything.”
“Right.” They’d been watching Ingray’s movements, too, then. But she’d only been home, and to Mama’s office, and here. All of them perfectly reasonable places for her to go. “Right, that makes sense. But … Eswae? Do you mean the parkland, or the town?”
“The town,” said Taucris. She walked over to a recycle slot in the wall and shoved the boxes in. “But of course that’s very near the parkland, and I can’t imagine why he would have gone there to begin with.” Eswae Town was mostly shops and services for farmers who lived in the area, and a stop-off for hikers. Not Danach’s kind of place at all. “He’s used a false ID to take a room and hire an excavation mech.” She came back and sat down on the bench beside Ingray again. “It looks a lot like he’s planning to dig in the parkland, but we set guards as soon as we heard what Pahlad said, about telling people the vestiges were buried there. Even though it hasn’t gotten to the news services yet. We could have Danach arrested right now. It would be better for him if we did; your mother would almost certainly get him clear of it one way or another. But the deputy chief is inclined to wait until Danach actually tries digging in the parkland. After all, he might sober up and change his mind, and just bringing him in on the false identification wouldn’t really be worth the effort for us, considering.” Taucris sighed. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this. But Nana has always supported Netano, and you’re … I mean … if Danach tries to dig in the parkland he’ll almost certainly be arrested. And if the news services get hold of something like that, Prolocutor Budrakim will get whatever he can out of it, you know that. Or, I mean. Netano could distance herself from Danach, and probably be all right. But it would be very bad for Danach. And he’s an ass and totally deserves it, but he is your brother. Or if you know he’s about to get himself in trouble, you could make sure you didn’t get caught in it.” She hesitated just a moment, looked away, and then said, still not looking at Ingray, “Or you could take advantage of it. Nana may not be a politician, but I know how these things work.”
But what was Danach doing? “The news services haven’t reported Pahlad’s presence here, have they? You said they didn’t know yet. So it’s not like anyone but us and maybe a few guards know what e said about putting the vestiges in the parkland.” No. Wait. Just the night before last Pahlad had told Danach that the Budrakim vestiges were hidden in Eswae Parkland. And he hadn’t heard Pahlad say that it had been a lie.
Stop and think. Nuncle Lak’s constant advice. Which she didn’t take as often as she should. What would happen if the news services found this? If Ingray right now sent Danach a message wondering (fretfully, anxiously?) where he was because they needed him at home, so it was obvious she didn’t know what he was doing, and had nothing to do with whatever his project was?
It would depend. It would depend on what the news services knew. And whether Ethiat Budrakim wanted to keep any of it quiet. Danach digging in the parkland for stolen vestiges would look bad for Netano and therefore good for the prolocutor—but those vestiges were Budrakim vestiges, and Netano wouldn’t hesitate to point that out, or bring Pahlad’s story to the news services if she could.
But Pahlad might well be easy to discredit. E was a convict, here illegally, and had said straight out that the Rejection of Further Obligations in the System Lareum was a fake. Whether it was true or not, no Hwaean would like hearing that. Ingray didn’t herself. She suspected it was probably true, and she was having trouble believing it.
None of that would matter much to Netano, if she was willing to throw Danach out the airlock.
Netano would have to start over with another potential heir. Ingray herself was already too involved in this, and besides she’d never stood a chance at being Netano in the first place. Had already been planning to walk away from the household, so that was all right.
If Ingray did nothing, she wouldn’t be any better off. But she wouldn’t be any worse off, and at least she’d have seen Danach humiliated. And Taucris was right; he did deserve it.
Taucris was still sitting beside her. Silent. Patient. Ingray remembered Taucris confiding in her. Taucris worrying about whether Ingray had had a break, and something to eat. Taucris leaning close, her hair brushing her cheek, fetching Tic had said, and, yes. I never imagined he’d throw his own child into Compassionate Removal to keep a political advantage, Taucris had just said, disapprovingly. And of Danach, He’s an ass and totally deserves it, but he is your brother. Taucris had quite possibly risked her job—a job that was important to her, that she’d wanted badly for much of her life—giving Ingray this information. Which Ingray could use to try to mitigate whatever trouble Danach was getting himself into, or to hurt him. Taucris had said as much. Nana may not be a politician, but I know how these things work.
She was still looking away from Ingray, her head turned toward the tumble of leaves and white flowers across the small courtyard. Giving Ingray room to think. And suddenly it mattered very much to Ingray how Taucris would look at her, when she turned to face her again.
“Fucking ascen
ded saints,” Ingray said, vehemently. But there wasn’t any other choice she could make, not really. She wanted to kick something, but her feet were bare and there was nothing nearby but the bench, and the stone walls of the court. “I’m going to have to go try to get him out of this somehow, aren’t I.”
By the time Ingray reached Eswae it was dark, a few flutterglows flickering red and yellow in the even darker shadows of the hostelry where Danach had taken a room. It wasn’t the sort of place that had an actual human being working there—just a panel at the end of the long building, with an interface you could use to pay for a bed. Though it wasn’t that late, the street was empty. A hundred meters or so off, light spilled into the street from a food shop, a place that sold ready-made meals to tourists. She’d looked in there before she’d come to the hostelry—she could imagine Danach there much more easily than she could believe he would spend any time at all in the tiny little compartments the hostelry likely offered.
She’d knocked on the door of his compartment and gotten no response. She could go back to the eatery and ask if anyone there had seen Danach. But if they had, what good would that do? She might learn what he’d eaten for supper that day but likely not much more. And besides, she knew where he’d gone. Asking would just waste time.
She got back in the groundcar and told it to take her to the parkland.
“Eswae Parkland is closed from one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise,” said the car as Ingray settled into the seat.
“I know,” she said. “I’m looking for someone. I just want to go slowly along the road and see if I can find them.”
“Do you require the assistance of Planetary Safety?” asked the car.
“No,” said Ingray. “It’s not that kind of thing.” Yet.
The groundcar lurched into motion. Within a few minutes the only light was the groundcar’s headlights. More flutterglows floated and flickered under the trees on either side of the road. The empty road—all the hikers and travelers were back at the town by now, probably having a nice warm supper in the bright and cheerful eatery Ingray had left behind her. If Ingray had stopped in there, to ask after Danach and maybe have some serbat, she would be there now. Surrounded by light and people. Distracted from her own thoughts. Tic had said—or his mech that he was using to pretend he was the Geck ambassador had said—that he would rather stay at Arsamol Planetary Safety with Pahlad. So she had taken the trip alone, and her thoughts had increasingly, disturbingly, centered on the memory of Excellency Zat on the hilltop. Which she needed to not think about right now, because she had to find Danach, and it was so dark. If he’d taken a different way she’d never be able to find him.