“So why don’t you quit?” asked Ingray, still baffled.
“I do. Every year. And every year I’m told that since my service has been so invaluable and I myself am irreplaceable, the Translators Office refuses to accept my
resignation.” She poked at the noodles again and frowned. “The other thing that might be at the Conclave is someone who’ll help me get away from this hole of a post.” She looked up, then, at Garal. “I don’t think you realize what you’ve gotten yourself into. You may find yourself wishing you were back in prison.”
“No,” said Garal. “I won’t.”
“Are you sure you want to go back to the Radch?” asked Ingray. “The news right now …”
“It’s my home,” Tibanvori said. “It’s civilization. Where else would I go? Certainly not here. As you already know, there was shooting on the docks just the other day. Not our part of it, as I said we’ve been left alone, thank the gods. But this is hardly a safe or civilized place.”
“Do you have any idea at all what’s happening now?” asked Garal. “I know you said it doesn’t concern us, but surely you’ve heard something.”
Ambassador Tibanvori sighed. “The last I heard, Station Security had managed to confine, who are they, the Omkem? The Omkem are confined to their end of the docks and part of one level of the station itself. I don’t think your Station Security was very heavily armed, so unless there was already a heavy military presence here, either the Omkem commander must be extremely stupid, or taking over this station isn’t what she’s after, and what she’s done so far is just one step of another project entirely.”
“Like what?” asked Ingray.
Tibanvori shoved a nutrient block across the table toward Garal, and another toward Ingray. “How should I know? I don’t live here. What would the Omkem want from you?”
“Access to our gate to Byeit,” said Garal.
“Or Tyr,” Ingray added.
“Well, there you go,” said Tibanvori. “I imagine they either want to threaten the station—or someone on it—to guarantee your acceptance of whatever terms they’re looking for, or this is a distraction from the real threat that’s already on its way here. Not a good time to move, with the Geck here, but they can’t have known the ambassador would have some incomprehensible alien fit over a stolen ship, and the distances involved make it impossible to do things like this on the spur of the moment. Probably the forces here have to act based on when more ships will arrive, and those will be, as I’ve said, already on their way.”
“We have to tell someone!” Ingray cried. Almost alarmed enough to stand up, exhausted as she was.
Tibanvori waved dismissively. “If military authorities here haven’t already figured all of that out, no amount of warning will help them. Eat.” She nudged the nutrient block nearest Ingray. “Get some sleep. Then decide what you’re going to do. You”—she turned to Garal—“have already made your decision.”
“Yes,” agreed Garal. “The ambassador is right, Ingray. There’s nothing you can do right now, and you’ll make better decisions when you’ve had some sleep.”
She managed a few bites of nutrient block and a mouthful or two of cold, soggy noodles, and then found a dark chamber nearby to lie down in. The floor wasn’t soft, not exactly, but it was surprisingly comfortable. She was asleep in less than a minute.
And dreamed endlessly of being in the vacuum suit, of seeing only black through the helmet visor, the sound of her breath loud in her ears. She knew she was dreaming, could feel that she was somehow not all the way asleep. Could sense the darkened chamber around her, thought every now and then she could hear voices somewhere else on the ship, and yet the dream was still there, she was still prisoned in the ill-fitting suit.
She woke. Blinked for the time. She had slept for far longer than she’d thought; at some point the vacuum suit dream must have trailed off and she’d finally slept deeply. The floor had shifted underneath her, had flexed to support her the way her bed at home would have. She lay there a moment, and then blinked open her messages and news again.
Ambassador Nevol had said the Federacy mechs were confined to part of one level of the station. In fact they had taken control of the System Lareum, and the nearly adjoining First Assembly offices and chambers, and they also held the path from there to where their ships were docked. It was an inconveniently long route that went away from the closest exit out of the docks and doubled back on itself, and for a moment Ingray wondered why they hadn’t taken the straightest way. She knew there was one—when she and Garal had arrived, just days ago, they’d taken it.
She looked closer at the information the news services were giving out. There was doubtless a lot they weren’t saying, but they had carefully mapped out the stretch of bays where the Omkem freighters were docked, and marked the location of the two freighters with bright orange dots. And down the way toward the more convenient exit a green dot marked another ship.
The Geck. It was the bay where the Geck ship was docked. This ship, which Ingray was on. The back of her neck prickled. If she went out onto the docks she could probably see them. Unless System Defense had that way blocked off by now, which she imagined they did. But so close.
She didn’t need to read the accompanying report to realize that the Omkem had been wary of interfering with the Geck in any way. Just the ship sitting there—and possibly several spider mechs or Geck humans going back and forth on business—had been enough to make them go the long way around to their goal.
There wasn’t much other information available. Station residents should remain calm. Hwae System Defense was in control of the situation. Station Administration and Hwae System Defense would provide fuller information soon; in the meantime residents were asked to keep local communications clear for official use, and to refrain from spreading false information. All the news services were sending out the same exact statement.
Everything else Ingray found was gossip and rumor. The station’s hull had been breached, killing dozens of people. The hull hadn’t actually been breached, but emergency doors had been triggered. Several hundred children had been evacuated from the lareum in the nick of time. No, dozens of children were dead or captive or otherwise missing. The Omkem troops had shot at least sixteen Hwaeans on their way out of the docks—there was an image of a man lying on the ground in what looked like a docks corridor, blood smeared across the floor beside his head. Ingray blinked that away, quickly.
Netano wouldn’t have been on the docks. Netano had come here to be seen involving herself with the Geck’s unexpected presence. She might well have been in one of the First Assembly offices. Nuncle Lak hadn’t replied to Ingray’s earlier message—which might mean e hadn’t had time to look at eir messages, or might mean e had nothing yet to report. Or it might mean communications with Hwae Station had been crushed under everyone in Hwaean space urgently trying to contact anyone and everyone they knew might be on the station, all at the same time, and a message from Nuncle Lak might take a while getting through.
None of that was reassuring. And no doubt Netano’s messages were flooded with people asking if she was all right, but surely she would understand if Ingray was one of those people.
She sent the message, a quick query that she knew would go straight to Netano’s personal attention. All Mama had to do to reply was blink an automated acknowledgment, that was all Ingray had asked for.
Nothing. Maybe Netano was asleep? Maybe she was perfectly fine but too busy to spare a thought for Ingray.
And then the message from Nuncle Lak arrived.
She had to get off the ship and onto the station. They had to let her off, she was human. She had to find someone—a spider mech, or the Geck ambassador herself—and tell them that she had to leave. She scrambled to her feet and headed back toward the room they’d eaten in.
“Garal!” she called, coming in the door. “Garal, I need to get off the ship.”
Garal sat at the table extrusion eating a bowl of soggy noodles
, a bit rumpled-looking but otherwise awake and alert. “Why?” e asked. “Has something happened?”
“The Federacy seized the System Lareum and the First Assembly Chambers,” Ingray said. “And Mama was in the lareum. She’s still there.”
“How do you know this?” Garal asked, quite reasonably. “There’s nothing on the official news the Geck are receiving but warnings to take shelter and stay there.”
“I finally got a message from Nuncle Lak,” she replied. “E says they probably wanted to take the First Assembly captive while it was in session, but the Geck being here forced them to take a longer route than they’d planned on. By the time they got there the Assembly Chambers were evacuated. But the lareum hadn’t been, not all the way. And Mama was there to meet a crèche trip from Arsamol District.”
A moment of silence. Then Garal asked, “And the children? Are they still in the lareum, too?”
“Yes! Most of the children are there, and Mama and a couple other people. They have the Prolocutor of the First Assembly, Prolocutor Dicat. And some of the lareum staff.”
“If they couldn’t get hold of the First Assembly,” Garal pointed out, “Prolocutor Dicat is a good second best. Though I imagine it’s the senior Dicat they have.”
“Yes,” Ingray acknowledged. “E was meeting another crèche trip. Eir heir was in the Chambers, but he got clear.” The First Prolocutor’s heir, named decades ago, had been attending to prolocutorial business for years. In terms of Assembly affairs the prolocutor might as well not be captive at all.
“Sit down,” said Garal. “Eat something. Have some poick. It’s …” E wrinkled eir nose. “I suspect it’s an acquired taste. But sit down and eat something and make a plan before you go charging off. Netano probably isn’t in immediate danger, and if she is, well, you won’t be able to help.”
Ingray had no intention of eating anything. But she needed to talk to Garal. She sat down. “I already have a plan. I don’t think they came here to take a crècheful of children hostage. They were after the First Assembly. Nuncle Lak says there hasn’t been any communication from the Omkem—or there hadn’t been when e sent the message, but System Defense is expecting them to make demands.”
Garal reached across the table to set a cup down in front of her, and then a bowl of still-stiff noodles in a pool of tepid water. “I’m sure I’ll be on any list of demands. Not anywhere near the top, of course. Still.”
“Probably,” Ingray admitted. “Nuncle Lak didn’t say. But you’re Geck now, so they can’t have you. But I’m the one who brought you here, and I was actually there when Zat was murdered.”
E stared at her for a moment, then said, “You want to exchange yourself for Netano.”
“And the children.”
Garal was silent a moment, regarding her. “Do you think they would agree to that? I don’t doubt Hwae would be willing to make some pretty big concessions for the sake of those children. Why would the Omkem let them go just to have you?”
Ingray had already thought about that. “There are at least two crèches there—the one my mother met, and the one that Prolocutor Dicat was there with. So anywhere from forty to a hundred children or more. Even if the crèche caretakers are with them, that’s a lot of frightened children to deal with. I don’t know if there’s any kind of negotiating going on, but the longer it takes …”
“The more the Omkem have to deal with a lot of tired, terrified children.”
“And the longer System Defense has to come up with some way to free those children that doesn’t involve any kind of negotiations.” Ingray took a careful breath. “The longer it takes, the more danger they’ll be in. The Omkem are going to want something important in exchange for them, but I don’t think System Defense will trade anything really important. They might not even be talking to the Omkem about it at all.”
“They probably aren’t,” agreed Garal. “It’s not a good idea to let your enemies know that they can just take some hostages and get whatever they want from you.”
“Right,” agreed Ingray, with a shiver. “But I could offer it myself. Last I knew the Omkem ambassador was still complaining about Hevom.” And about Garal being sent to the Geck, but e already knew that. “I was there when Zat died. I can tell them what I know. I’ll tell them they can have me, if they let the children go, and Mama. She hasn’t named her heir yet; if anything happens to her …”
“This isn’t actually about Hevom,” Garal said. “Zat’s death is just a convenient excuse, a justification. It’s the First Assembly they were aiming at. The First Assembly represents Hwae Station. And the six Hwaean outstations. And what residents there are on Zenith Platform. So whoever controls the First Assembly controls access to the gates.” And access to the planet’s resources from space. “It’s probably not a coincidence that they’ve done this during one of the times the Assembly is meeting in person. Excellency Zat’s only been dead a few days. The freighters the Omkem troops came in docked a week ago, and freighters aren’t exactly fast. They’ll have left Enthen weeks before that. Having you won’t make any difference. And once they have you …”
“I have to try.” Ingray didn’t know how else to explain. “All those children.”
“You’re not responsible for their safety,” Garal pointed out. “If they’re even still alive.”
They very possibly weren’t. “And Netano is my mother.”
“She is,” agreed Garal. “I know. You and I are both out of a public crèche. Any little bit our parents gave us, it’s everything we have. Our families expect us to be grateful for it, and so does everyone else. And we do feel it. I felt it for so much longer than I probably should have, and Netano never did anything to you even remotely like what Ethiat Budrakim did to me. From the moment you joined her household you knew what you owed Netano. And she hasn’t given her name to Danach yet, so if something happens to her now, that’s the end of Netano. But if something happens to you, that’s the end of you. Ethiat Budrakim aside, I’m under the impression that quite a lot of parents would actually prefer to risk themselves to protect their children, rather than the other way around.”
“Yes,” agreed Ingray, her stomach heaving with an anxiety she’d been trying to ignore since she’d waked. “But that’s exactly why …”
“And you were thinking about leaving,” Garal cut in. “You’ve been thinking about leaving the Aughskolds. I know you have. You didn’t do all this”—e gestured toward emself—“thinking it would get you into Danach’s place. Or, I imagine you sort of hoped it would but you’d never have seriously thought it would happen.”
“No.” Ingray’s face heated with embarrassment. She had barely even admitted that to herself; it was humiliating to hear Garal say it straight out. But also a relief, in a strange way she couldn’t quite explain.
“No one expects you to do anything like this,” continued Garal. “Least of all Netano. And if she does, well …” E waved away any concern for Netano’s opinion in that case.
“I couldn’t really afford it,” Ingray said. “It turns out no amount of money is enough to get any Tyr broker to break someone out of Compassionate Removal. I didn’t know that at the time but I should have realized it.”
Garal went suddenly still for the briefest moment, then finished lowering eir cup of poick to the table. Ingray might not have even noticed, if she hadn’t gotten to know em as well as she had.
“Are you working for Tyr? Or, were you? I guess you can’t be now, if you’re Geck.” No reply. “I’ve been thinking about it. I imagine they thought I’d thaw you out when we got to Hwae and then you’d do …
something that would benefit them? But Tic wouldn’t let you on board that way, and you didn’t want anything to do with whatever it was I was planning. You didn’t even want to talk to me when I found you at the Incomers Office. And there was nowhere there to sleep and nothing for you to eat, but you could have at least cadged a meal out of me or Tic, or tried to.” And if there was one thing Garal had been
obsessive about—still was—it was access to food. “So why did you wait until next morning?”
“I’m not working for Tyr,” e said. “I told them I wouldn’t work for them. I told them I wasn’t going back to Hwae no matter what they did. And they told me that since I didn’t technically exist and there was no one who knew or cared that I was on Tyr Siilas except you—and I’d cut that avenue off myself—they would be happy to toss me out an airlock if I didn’t agree to whatever it was they wanted. And I thought maybe once I got that identity in my hands I might have at least something to work with.” E gave the tiniest of smiles. “Well, you know how that worked out. I couldn’t leave when the Executory put Tic’s ship under interdict. And by the time I might have been able to, I decided it would be better to stay with you.”
“What did they want?” asked Ingray. “No, I know what it was. They wanted you to embarrass Prolocutor Budrakim.”
“Among other things,” agreed Garal. “That much at least I didn’t mind doing. But I told them I wouldn’t work for them, and I haven’t been. And even if I were—and if I weren’t Geck now—it wouldn’t do any good. They won’t come charging in to help me, or offer any kind of assistance at all. Even when they were trying to convince me to work for them they wouldn’t make any promises to help me out if I landed in trouble here. Not even as a lie to get me to do what they wanted, right?” No, of course not. Among the few serious crimes the Tyr recognized, breaking a contract—even an implied one—was among the worst. “They knew they didn’t have to offer me anything. The Tyr will act if they think it’s in the best interest of the Executory, and not before, or for any other reason. If it helps, I’m sure they’ve tried other things than just sending me. I’m sure there are Tyr agents on this station right now. The question is who they are, and what good they’ll do you.”
“And the answer to that last,” agreed Ingray, “is not much unless it suits their own goals.”
“And the Geck won’t interfere,” said Garal. “It would be a potentially serious breach of the treaty. And that means that I can’t do anything. It also means you’re safe here. And if your mother is even a half-decent parent, she’ll want you to stay safe.”