Commander Hatqueban raised her sidearm and pointed it at Nicale. “The time for discussion is past. Open the case, Prolocutor.”
Nicale made a small, frightened noise but did not otherwise move. Ingray had a sharp, clear memory of the business end of the commander’s gun in her vision. Her breathing tightened and once again everything else seemed to fall away. Having the Rejection would do the Omkem very little good—even if it was genuine, the questions Garal had raised would likely be seized on by Hwaeans eager for any advantage against the Federacy just now. And maybe having the bowl wouldn’t do the Omkem much good, either, maybe—probably—Hwaean System Defense would fight on regardless, and the First Assembly would find a new place to meet, and vote into law some other vestige to open those meetings with.
This Prolocutor Dicat would gain very little by opening the case—some time, at most, before the next demand, or until the commander decided eir life wasn’t worth preserving. But the Assembly Bell was important. It was part of the history of Hwae. It was what set official First Assembly sessions apart from other sorts of meetings. Without it, the First Assembly wasn’t really the First Assembly. But then, would some other group of people using it be able to legally claim to be the real First Assembly? No, Ingray was sure it didn’t work that way. But it was part of how it worked. If the Omkem couldn’t put their hands on the Assembly itself, this was possibly a workable second choice. Or at least the best option facing Commander Hatqueban right now.
Delay might help Hwae System Defense. So the prolocutor—and Ingray and Nicale for that matter—would want to delay the opening of that case for as long as possible. And the most unarguable delay would be the prolocutor flatly refusing to open the case.
And if Prolocutor Dicat died refusing to open that case, e would leave a valuable political legacy for eir successor. Ingray had no doubt Netano would do her best to capitalize on Ingray’s own death in very much the same way. Nicale—well, the senior Nicale Tai had time to choose a new heir, after all. They were all three of them disposable, at least in a certain sense. Replaceable.
Prolocutor Dicat hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even breathed. Everything seemed frozen, time slowed in the face of Ingray’s racing, terrified thoughts, that gun pointed at Nicale. Prolocutor Dicat had been irritable and unpleasant. E was uncomfortable, likely in pain and no doubt frightened. But e was—e always had been—a shrewd politician. E had surely already seen what Ingray had just realized, that the best move now, for emself and for Hwae, was to let Commander Hatqueban shoot Nicale, and then Ingray, to steadfastly refuse to open that case. To make the commander break it. Which she certainly would, but not until she was forced to, not until Ingray, Nicale, and Prolocutor Dicat were all dead.
“I won’t open the case,” said Prolocutor Dicat.
And without even realizing she’d intended it, Ingray grabbed the gilded decanter beside her and flung it at the case on its plinth.
The lights went out. Something flashed, made a loud bang, and someone screamed. Ingray. Ingray had screamed, and thrown herself off the bench onto the floor, though she didn’t remember actually doing it. More gunshots, deafening in the enclosed space. Ingray lay facedown on the cold tile and gasped, breathless, heart pounding. Her knee hurt, she must have wrenched it coming off the bench.
Silence. Then light that seemed to swing wildly. “Chenns!” Commander Hatqueban’s voice. “Chenns, hear. Chenns!”
“I good condition,” replied Excellency Chenns. “Say I told you so the helmet.”
Still flat on the floor, Ingray dared to raise her head. Commander Hatqueban stood nearby, a light in her hand, and beside her knelt Excellency Chenns. Blood ran down the side of his face. “The armor absent the seem,” replied Commander Hatqueban. “Communications the condition absent operate. The mechs absent motion.”
The mechs absent motion. The mechs weren’t moving, the commander must have meant. Communications had been cut off somehow. Ingray pushed herself up, just a bit.
“Don’t move, Excellency Aughskold,” ordered Commander Hatqueban sharply, in Yiir. “You almost got Excellency Chenns killed.”
Not me, Ingray wanted to protest. All the guns had been on the commander’s side, after all. Instead she said, “Where’s Prolocutor Dicat? Where’s Nicale?”
“Here.” Prolocutor Dicat’s voice. Commander Hatqueban swung her light in eir direction.
Prolocutor Dicat knelt on the floor beside Nicale’s prone form. Eir hand on Nicale’s shoulder, and in the dim, erratic light it took Ingray a moment to realize that there was blood between eir fingers. Nicale didn’t move, and her breath came shallow and gasping.
She’d been shot. My fault, thought Ingray, in panicked horror. Nicale had been shot because of what Ingray had done. Now she might die.
No. No, if Ingray had done nothing, both Ingray and Nicale would likely have ended up dead. And Nicale wasn’t dead yet. She was just … Oh fucking ascended saints, Ingray thought. Don’t let her die because of me.
“There’s an aid kit in the back of the gallery,” Prolocutor Dicat said, icily calm.
Without a word, Chenns got to his feet and walked up the ramp to the gallery. A mech lay unmoving beside the ramp, as though it had tumbled off and not had a chance to right itself, its gun still clutched in one appendage. Commander Hatqueban pointed her gun at Ingray. “I will not hesitate to shoot, excellency.”
“I’m sure,” replied Ingray. There was no hiding the way her voice was shaking. She wasn’t sure she could get to her feet if she needed to, she was shaking so much even lying on the ground like this.
Chenns brought the aid kit over to where Nicale lay, and knelt beside the prolocutor and began sorting through the kit’s supplies. “Is there something the alarm did to block our communications?” asked Commander Hatqueban. “That wasn’t in the information I was given.”
Ingray presumed the commander was addressing her—Nicale was unconscious, and Prolocutor Dicat and Excellency Chenns were busy with the aid kit. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” Nicale Tai would have known. “I’m sure they don’t announce the details of how security works to everyone.”
“Don’t move,” said Commander Hatqueban. Ingray sighed and laid her head back down. Even if her knee didn’t ache fiercely, even if she weren’t still trembling, she posed no threat to anyone. And there was nothing she could do to help Nicale.
“I don’t know if that’s going to help,” she heard Chenns say after a few minutes. “It’s the best we can do.”
“You’ve done enough, excellency,” said Prolocutor Dicat, eir voice dry and sardonic, in Yiir though Chenns had spoken Bantia. Nicale’s quick and shallow breathing seemed to slow. Was that a good sign? Ingray vaguely remembered learning about the signs of shock, something about breathing fast and being cold and confused. She wanted to ask Prolocutor Dicat and Excellency Chenns if Nicale’s skin was cold and clammy, or at least look up to see if they’d raised up Nicale’s feet, but that was foolish. Aid kits came with instructions, and besides, both Dicat and Chenns very probably knew what they were doing. She would only be in the way, and besides, she’d caused this, it was her fault that Nicale was hurt, even if it had been Commander Hatqueban or one of the mechs who had fired the gun. It had probably been Commander Hatqueban who had fired.
The light moved away, leaving them in the dark. Footsteps circled the gallery—Commander Hatqueban, it must be, checking the exits. “Condition trapped,” said Commander Hatqueban’s voice once she’d finished the circuit, coming down the ramp from the sound of her steps, and from the returning light. “Certainly ours present forcibly open upon awareness.” The weird results coming from Ingray’s limited translation utility were making at least some minimal sense to her. The commander thought her soldiers would begin working to break into the meeting room as soon as they realized they had lost contact with her. “Time is finite, but possession condition possession.” Ingray frowned into the floor. There wasn’t much time, or time was running out. But what in the worl
d was possession condition possession supposed to mean?
“Hatqueban!” The alarm in Excellency Chenns’s voice was enough to make Ingray push herself partway up.
Chenns still knelt at Prolocutor Dicat’s side, next to Nicale. But he wasn’t looking at Nicale. He was staring at the diorite plinth, with its glass case.
Its empty glass case. Commander Hatqueban aimed her light straight at it, but there had been no mistake, no trick of the shadows. The bowl and spoon were gone.
“What did you do?” she demanded, turning her light on Ingray.
Ingray blinked, suddenly unable to see anything except that light in her face. “Nothing! I threw the decanter, and then the lights went out and I fell off the bench.”
“Stand up!” Hatqueban demanded.
Slowly, carefully, using the bench beside her as support, Ingray got to her feet. “I hurt my knee,” she said. Commander Hatqueban still shone the light in Ingray’s face, but she seemed to have reached some point beyond fear. Beyond guessing or even caring what might happen next.
Brusquely Commander Hatqueban patted down Ingray’s legs and momentarily flicked up the hem of her skirts.
“She doesn’t have it,” said Chenns, in Yiir. “The bowl was too large to hide that way.” And Nicale certainly didn’t have it. Or Prolocutor Dicat.
After a moment the light turned away, and Commander Hatqueban strode over to the mech that lay beside the ramp. She leaned over and pressed something on the mech’s side, and the compartment lid snicked open. The commander pulled the lid all the way up and shone her light inside. “Rejection absent!”
“The Rejection is gone?” asked Ingray.
“That’s impossible,” said Prolocutor Dicat. “When the alarm went off, the doors will have closed and locked.”
“That’s what the intelligence said would happen, yes,” agreed Commander Hatqueban. “Perhaps they didn’t close and lock right away.”
“It wasn’t even ten seconds before you turned your light on,” argued Chenns. Still speaking Yiir. “Someone came in here when the lights went out, and in less than ten seconds they opened the case and took the bell, and then forced open the mech’s compartment and took the Rejection, and left without us knowing it? And they left behind the Prolocutor of the First Assembly, and the daughter of an Assembly representative? Not to mention a badly injured keeper of post-Tyr vestiges? No, Commander, it’s impossible.”
It couldn’t be Tic. He wasn’t here. Even if the Geck had been willing to risk breaking the treaty by sneaking him in when Garal and Ambassador Tibanvori had come, he would likely have been detected by now. Again.
“Undefined person condition present,” said Commander Hatqueban, very calmly, and turned to Ingray, still standing in front of the bench, knee aching. “What did you do? What was the plan?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Though she did. There had indeed been a plan—or at least a plan to make a plan.
“You set that alarm off on purpose.” The commander’s voice was steady, and icy.
“You were going to shoot me, or Nicale. You said so. And you were …” Her voice shook too hard to continue. She swallowed and tried again. “It was obvious you didn’t want to set the alarm off because it would make things more difficult for you. So I set it off.” Fresh tears welled, and she didn’t try to stop them.
Silence. Commander Hatqueban didn’t move.
“You can shoot me if you want,” said Ingray. “The children are safe, and my mama. That’s all I came here for.” Her voice still trembling so much she could barely speak. She tried to make herself lift her chin defiantly, wasn’t sure if she managed it, or if she was only shaking so hard that it seemed like she might have.
The silence stretched out. She let the children go, Ingray reminded herself. Still weeping. She gave Prolocutor Dicat the chair. That didn’t mean the commander wouldn’t kill anyone—she was a soldier, after all—but maybe, just maybe, she would go to some lengths to avoid it, to avoid being cruel if she could.
After a few more seconds of silence, Commander Hatqueban said, brusquely, “If you move from that bench, or if you speak one more word, whatever it is, I will shoot you.”
Ingray sat, and after a moment Commander Hatqueban began a circuit of the room, very slow and methodical, shining her light into every shadowed corner.
Tears still ran down Ingray’s face. She sniffled, as quietly as she could, and shifted uncomfortably on the cushioned bench and then, careful of her injured knee, pulled her feet up and lay down, her arms crossed over her body. Commander Hatqueban made two more slow circuits of the room, ducking to shine her light under every table and bench, occasionally knocking on a wall or stomping one foot on a floor tile, as though searching for some secret hollow space.
Ingray didn’t seem to be able to stop crying. Commander Hatqueban’s light moved as she still slowly circled the room. Either Prolocutor Dicat or Excellency Chenns had put some cushions under Nicale’s feet, and there must have been a thin blanket in the aid kit, because it lay across Nicale’s body and Ingray didn’t want to think about the puzzle—the far too simple a puzzle—of whether it was her fault Nicale had been shot. She wanted to be home, in her room. With a plate of fruit and cheese and a decanter of nice hot serbat, and rain outside the window and nowhere to be, no one needing her for anything. And there was no way she could be, probably never would be again. There was nothing she could do about any of it but lie here and cry.
Halfway through the commander’s sixth slow circuit of the room there was a loud thunk and then the hiss of a door opening, and suddenly light shone through a doorway and the mech by the ramp shuddered, and then righted itself. Ingray didn’t move. She refused to move, to speak, to do anything. Across the room another mech rose that must have been concealed from her view by benches and tables until now. Of course—two mechs had followed them into the Assembly Chambers.
“Finally,” said Commander Hatqueban, as another Federacy mech trundled into the room. “Good quick work. Specified several captive offer a turnip ship. Time is finite. Additional only these to exit. Search attribute exhaustive.”
“Affirmed, Commander,” replied the newest mech, as the commander strode out the door, followed by Excellency Chenns. The mech stepped down the ramp, lowered itself, and extruded a shelf with which it lifted Nicale and carried her out the door. The mech that had fallen off the ramp walked over to Prolocutor Dicat then, and scooped em carefully up and followed the first.
The third mech, the one that had been out of Ingray’s sight until now, approached Ingray and said, quietly, “Are you all right besides the sprained knee, Miss Aughskold?” In Bantia.
Ingray blinked. “I … what?”
It was still the same large, squarish mech, four-legged and three-armed. Or she supposed it was the same one, she couldn’t really tell one from another.
“Don’t make any noises, miss,” said the mech. “I’m Char Nakal, Hwae System Defense Specialist. Our troops have taken control of the Federacy freighters and disconnected the pilots there from their mechs. The commander and the excellency are in for a surprise, but we want you three well clear before they realize it. Commander Hatqueban is still armed, and we think Excellency Chenns might be, too. And none of us are quite used to these hulks yet, we’d prefer not to fight with them just now. I’m only telling you so that you’ll know not to come up with some sort of idea for escaping on your own. I’m told you’re liable to do that sort of thing.”
“I’m …” Ingray began. And then, “What?” I’m told you’re liable to do that sort of thing. Who would have …
Tic would have. Ingray opened her mouth to ask, Is Tic with you?
The mech lowered itself and scooped her up. “Quiet, now, miss. If we take too long here Commander Hatqueban will wonder why. Oh, here, don’t forget your shoes.” It hooked its huge gun onto its side and then picked up the shoes under the bench Ingray had been lying on and set them in her lap.
“They’re n
ot …” Ingray began.
“Hush now.” The mech lumbered up the ramp holding Ingray in two of its arms.
Now wasn’t the time for questions. Ingray kept still as they moved out into the corridor. The shoes were heavy in her lap, almost boots, with thick, hard soles, and definitely too large for her. Maybe it was something that had come into style in the months she’d been gone at Tyr Siilas. Or maybe the Assembly representative who owned them wanted to be thought of as someone who did hands-on, hard work, the sort that would require heavy foot protection. Well, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Specialist Nakal was going to get her away from here; the two hulking gray mechs ahead of her were being piloted by other Hwae System Defense Specialists and were going to get Nicale and Prolocutor Dicat safely away, too; and all she had to do to help was stay calm. Stay quiet. She could do that. It was easy. The corridors of the Assembly offices were dark, and the only sound was the clunking of the mechs walking. It was almost relaxing.
The corridor that led to the lareum was bright, lit by the recording of Hwae’s sun. A sliver of Hwae itself was peeking up over the floor on the right-hand wall. The space here was broader than the corridor they’d come out of, and the other two mechs began to slow, just slightly, just enough to gradually come nearer to the one piloted by Specialist Nakal, holding Ingray. Up ahead she could see Commander Hatqueban’s back, and Excellency Chenns’s. He had his helmet off again.
The commander stopped abruptly. Turned. Chenns, a few steps beyond, turned, too, with a worried stare at Hatqueban. “Halt!” shouted Commander Hatqueban.
The three mechs came to an uneven, faltering stop. The commander’s blank gray faceplate stared. A chill began at the back of Ingray’s neck. She remembered the obvious difference between Tic piloting a spider mech and the Geck ambassador piloting one. Reminded herself that even though she knew that difference, she hadn’t always noticed it, especially if she was assuming she knew which one it was, or if there were other things going on.