“That’s true,” said Garal. “It might be better to go visit some time, instead of committing to spend the next five or six years of your life with the Geck.”
“You sell yourself short, you know,” Tic said to Ingray then. “If your mother is somehow unimpressed with you, that’s her problem, not yours. And actually, as a mother she may not be all cuddles and hugs, and it’s possible you’ll be happier at some distance from her—I think that’s likely, actually—but from what I can see I’m pretty sure she does care about you. And that nuncle of yours certainly knows what you’re worth.”
“Danach will likely be easier to live with once the inheritance thing is settled,” added Garal. “Still, I couldn’t blame you if you wanted to be away from all of them for a while.”
“You could come with us,” suggested Tic.
“No,” said Ingray. “No, I want to stay home for a while.”
At that point, the aide came back into the room with a tray of bread and cheese and said, “Miss Ingray, your mother would like a few minutes with you. She’s in the room just across.”
The room was nearly identical to the one Ingray had just left, except the bed was rolled up and where it would have been, Netano sat on a cushioned bench, and the wall to her right showed Nuncle Lak, sitting in a single chair, in a nondescript pale blue room. “You wanted to see me, Mama?” asked Ingray.
“Ingray, dear. Sit down.” Netano gestured at the space on the bench beside her. Ingray sat. “Have you seen the news services?” Netano continued. “You’re a hero.”
She didn’t feel like a hero. “Apparently.”
“I feel like I need to apologize to you,” said Netano. And then, with a glance at Nuncle Lak, though e had said nothing, hadn’t moved at all, “Your nuncle tells me I need to apologize to you. I’ve always told you children that any of you could be my heir, and I would choose the best one.”
“It’s all right,” said Ingray. Almost feeling as though she was telling the truth. “I’ve always known it was going to be Danach. Everyone knows.”
Netano gave a sardonic half-smile. “Even when he was small, Danach always had a … a certain something. And when he decides on a project, he is absolutely ruthless in carrying it out. And he’s always understood that the family’s interests are his interests. Even this business with the dirt mover—once he realized he had to change course, he did so immediately.”
A certain something, thought Ingray. Of course Danach had that certain something. He was from a good family, with old names and a history. He wasn’t some nobody out of a public crèche. But, no. Ingray wouldn’t be angry or bitter. She had her own life to make, and she could do that whether she had a certain something or not. You sell yourself short, Tic had just said, and she wasn’t going to do that anymore. She didn’t need to worry about Netano, or Danach.
“Your mother considers herself to be very egalitarian, very democratic,” said Nuncle Lak. “She was determined to give her public crèche fosters—that would be you, and Vaor before e left—every chance at inheriting. But somehow they never had that certain something.”
Ingray managed to keep her face more or less impassive, despite her surprise. She had never, ever heard Nuncle Lak speak about Netano in quite that way, in Netano’s presence or not. Certainly not on that topic.
“Now’s not the time, Lak,” Netano said sharply.
“Maybe not,” conceded Nuncle Lak. “But that time is fast approaching.”
Netano sighed. “I got a message from Prolocutor Dicat, not an hour ago, saying that if the gossip e’d heard was correct, I was choosing the wrong heir. I think e is probably correct. I think I should give my name to you, Ingray.”
It was as though the solid ground she had been standing on, steady and secure, had suddenly yawned open beneath her feet. “I … what?”
“Your mother wants to name you her heir,” said Nuncle Lak drily.
“I … but …”
“You’re thinking you can’t do it,” said Nuncle Lak. “But you can. And you wouldn’t be doing any of it on your own. Not at first. Not for a very long while, I hope.”
“And you’re a hero,” said Netano. “I’m quite sure the version of events I’m seeing in the news services isn’t … entirely accurate. That’s how the news services are, and besides, I don’t doubt there are things System Defense would rather keep quiet. But you walked into that situation willingly, and you did it to save those children, and to save Hwae. And what’s more, you succeeded. The details don’t matter.”
“And you’ve managed to acquire the good opinion of Prolocutor Dicat,” added Nuncle Lak. “I’m sure you realize that’s not easily done. That may well be extremely helpful, quite soon. Prolocutor Budrakim has managed to put himself in a remarkably difficult position this close to elections. There’s every chance you would be Third Prolocutor this time next year.”
Danach. Danach had known or suspected that this was coming. That was why he’d tried so hard to be pleasant, back in the infirmary. Why even so he’d said, resentfully, You were always Nuncle Lak’s favorite.
“The Tyr Executory is fully aware of the debt they owe you,” continued Netano. “They’ve sent to offer you indefinite residency documents, if you want them. No fees.”
“Though not free lodging or citizenship,” Nuncle Lak put in. “The Tyr are still the Tyr, after all.”
“And the Peoples of Byeit have also expressed their thanks,” Netano continued. “And there’s your personal connection with the Geck ambassador.”
“In short,” said Nuncle Lak, “at this point your mother would be a fool to name anyone but you her heir.”
She’d done it. She’d bested Danach. In the most undeniable, final way possible. This was a victory she had barely ever allowed herself to imagine, even as a private, grandiose fantasy. She’d done it.
She would be Representative Aughskold. Maybe Prolocutor Aughskold. The house in Arsamol, with the beautiful colored-glass front, the flower-lined courtyard, would always be hers. Of course she would be generous and gracious and let Danach live there.
She took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and found herself saying, “No. No, Danach’s always been your heir.”
“Are you worried I don’t mean it?” asked Netano. “Or that I don’t really want you as my heir? I do mean it, and I do want you to be the next Netano.”
“No, I just don’t want it,” said Ingray. And the free-falling fear that had been growing ever since Netano had made her offer dissipated. Mostly. “I’m not your best choice. I wouldn’t be good at it. Whatever the news services are saying about me now, it won’t last, and I’m not good at the politics. No, you should give it to Danach.” And then she braced herself for the inevitable result of having thwarted Netano.
To Ingray’s distressed astonishment, Nuncle Lak laughed. “I warned you, sis. Way back when.” Amazingly, Netano only sighed again. Nuncle Lak continued. “I suppose it’s useless for me to make the same offer and ask you to be my heir? Not that I don’t want to very much, but it would mean you’d have to work closely with Danach, and, well, I know how that’s bound to turn out. I’d have offered long since, otherwise.”
“Ingray, dear,” began Netano, into Ingray’s inability to answer this. “I really think …”
“Don’t argue with her, sis,” said Nuncle Lak. “She knows what she wants. If that’s not what you want, well, that’s how it is to have children. And I imagine it’s the better choice for her, if not for you.”
“No,” protested Ingray. “No, Danach will be much better. He’s wanted it all his life.”
“Which isn’t the same as being suited to it,” pointed out Nuncle Lak. “But no matter his deficiencies—no, we’re not discussing that right now,” he said as Netano sighed again. “But no matter the question of how suited he is, I do think he’ll work very hard to be worthy of it.”
“Yes,” agreed Netano. “I think he will.”
“But, Nuncle,” asked Ingray, “do I still have my
job?”
As Ingray stepped back into her own room, Garal was just finishing saying something, and Taucris and Tic both laughed. They all fell silent when they saw Ingray standing there, tense, managing to look as though nothing had happened, or so she thought, but Taucris immediately said, concerned, “What happened?” and they all turned to stare at her.
She tried to swallow and found she couldn’t. “Mama said she wanted to give me her name.”
“Congratulations,” Tic said. “I know that’s an important thing here, and quite something when the name you’re getting is Netano Aughskold’s.”
Taucris frowned, still concerned. Garal said, “I was wrong, you will be in a position to do something about the situation in Compassionate Removal. Or at least to try.”
Ingray opened her mouth to answer, and burst into tears. Taucris leapt off the bed and put her arms around Ingray, who gratefully laid her head on Taucris’s shoulder. After a few moments Ingray managed to say, “I said no.”
A moment of silence. Ingray could see nothing but the green silk of Taucris’s shirt, which Ingray hoped wouldn’t be damaged by the tears soaking it. Then Tic said, “Oh, thank goodness. I was having trouble imagining you as Representative Aughskold, but I wasn’t going to say anything if that was what you wanted.”
“I thought it was,” admitted Ingray, still into Taucris’s shoulder. “And when she said it, I don’t know, I meant to say yes or thank you or something but instead I said no.”
“Here, sit down,” said Taucris. “I’ll pour you some serbat.”
“I’m sorry,” said Garal, when she’d sat down and Taucris was reaching for a cup.
“For what?” asked Ingray.
“You started crying right when I said that about reforming Compassionate Removal. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you were responsible for that. Because you’re not. It’s very important to me, and I would love to have your help, but you’re not the only help I have. The important thing is you didn’t say yes to something that would have made you unhappy.”
“Oh.” Ingray wiped her eyes and took the cup of serbat Taucris offered. “I’m not sure I even heard that. I just …” Fresh tears threatened. No, no, she had heard it, and she had felt, at that moment, that she had failed em. And that had been as much as her self-control could take.
“Do you still have your job?” Taucris asked.
“Yes. Yes, and even if I get my own place I’ll always have my room at home, Mama said.”
“Parents always say that,” said Taucris.
“Do they?” asked Tic. “Mine didn’t.”
“Nor mine,” Garal said, voice dry.
“Well,” observed Ingray, with a small hiccup, “but I didn’t get any sea worms.”
“Not everyone can be as lucky as I am,” Tic agreed.
The next morning Ingray met briefly with Nuncle Lak. “Well, I’ll be sorry to lose you in the office,” e said, from the wall of Ingray’s room, as she and Taucris sat cross-legged on her bed. “But I think it’s the right choice. Any sort of reform of Compassionate Removal will need more than just Netano’s support, so it’s better if you do that on your own, officially. And of course any charity work you do, especially with the district’s public crèches, will be good for everyone, whether or not you’re doing it in Netano’s name.” E sighed. “I do wish you’d stay to talk to the major news services. But I can’t blame you for wanting to go straight home. I would, in your place.”
“The Arsamol District Voice will be very happy with their exclusive, though,” Taucris pointed out.
“They will,” agreed Nuncle Lak, with a smile. “And Netano can only benefit from that as well, which I will certainly point out to her when she wakes up. We talked to Danach last night, and of course he’s very happy, though he was certainly surprised. He’s too smart not to realize that you probably turned it down, Ingray, but also too smart to say anything about it. We’re delaying the announcement, though. We don’t want to give anyone the impression that you’ve been slighted. So actually the fact that you’ve got some plans of your own is very helpful to us.”
“It’s better to do it that way,” agreed Ingray. She’d had confidence that Nuncle Lak would have reached the same conclusions she had, but she still felt relief. If Danach were to be announced as Netano’s heir immediately, Ingray would have to stay here a few days, to be seen congratulating him, and to avoid giving the impression that she resented the choice. “You’ll have time to plan the announcement, and make sure there’s a big party.” Danach would like that.
“Yes,” Nuncle Lak agreed. “And Danach won’t have to share the spotlight the whole time. You’ll come, though, yes? It won’t be for a few months, at the very least.”
“Yes, of course,” said Ingray.
As soon as Nuncle Lak signed off, Ingray and Taucris left the lodging via a service entrance, in an attempt to avoid the news service mechs, and took a series of crowded lifts and trams to the elevator shuttle. GECK DELEGATION DEPARTING DAY AFTER TOMORROW, one of the news services said in Ingray’s vision as she stood next to Taucris on the first tram ride. Garal got only a brief mention, far, far into the article, and Tic wasn’t mentioned at all, let alone his spider mechs. FIGHTING AT THE ENTHEN GATE said another news service announcement. FEDERACY SHIP CAPTURED; THREE FLED. She glanced closer, to discover that Commander Hatqueban was still in the custody of Hwae System Defense. Excellency Chenns wasn’t mentioned at all. Prolocutor Dicat, along with the rest of the First Assembly, had met with ambassadors from Tyr and Byeit. The younger Prolocutor Dicat. “We don’t want a war,” he’d told the news services. “But we’ll be happy to oblige the Federacy if they’re determined to have one.” The Omkem Chancery had not responded to the news services’ requests for a statement.
News services based in Third Assembly districts were already speculating on the chances of Ethiat Budrakim resigning, or even facing litigation. Neither he nor his daughter were answering questions.
Ingray blinked the news away. Pulled up a draft of a message she was thinking of sending to the younger Ethiat Budrakim. Garal had seemed to trust eir sister somewhat, and Ingray was fairly sure she’d had nothing to do with either what had happened to Garal or the events of the last week. Likely her political career was over, at least for the foreseeable future, but that wasn’t her fault, and Ingray thought she might be sympathetic to an attempt to rethink Compassionate Removal.
In the seat next to her on the second tram, Taucris said, “Danach’s awake. I’ve just had a message from him.”
“I have, too,” Ingray admitted. “I don’t think I want to answer him right now.”
They got off at the shuttle dock. Detoured to get a change of clothes—all Ingray had was what she’d been wearing ever since she’d gotten on the elevator, days and days ago it seemed like. It had been all right while she was still in the rooms Netano had taken, and she could make the trip from the station to Arsamol with just the clothes she was wearing—she’d done it just a week or two ago. But this time she didn’t have to. She grabbed a set of clothes in a soft, comfortable synthetic, blue and orange, and then, thinking of the hairpins she’d never gotten back, she added a blue scarf for her hair; she knew any pins she got would likely be gone before she set foot on Hwae, and her hair wouldn’t stay in braids any better than it would hold hairpins.
Walking into the shuttle lobby, she felt as though the last week or so had never happened, or worse, that she was about to repeat it. The whole thing was so familiar—even down to the children in crèche uniforms waiting for the shuttle. And high on the walls, the shifting images from the history of Hwae. As Ingray watched, the picture changed to the archprolocutor making the last payment on the debt to Tyr, the Rejection of Obligations ready to be unrolled behind him. That image, one every Hwaean had seen at one time or another, felt different now. Was it because she’d seen the Rejection rolled up, torn, folded over to be shoved into the compartment of a mech, as though it were any piece of cloth, instead of a
wesome and untouchable in its case? Or was it because she knew, now, that the Rejection this image depicted wasn’t genuine? Or maybe it was just that she’d been through so much in one week that she still had to sort through that she didn’t have the emotional energy to spend contemplating this image, which was even now shifting to another one?
“Danach is here,” said Taucris.
He was. Walking toward them from the middle of the lobby. “Ingray,” he said, voice accusing. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Though she wasn’t, not really. “I wanted to catch the shuttle to the elevator.” Taucris, standing beside her, said nothing.
“I don’t understand,” said Danach. Still sounding aggrieved. “You said no. I know you did, I asked, because I was sure Mama was going to give it to you. Then I thought Nuncle Lak must have named you eir heir, but e hasn’t.”
“You don’t want me as Lak Aughskold,” Ingray said.
“No,” Danach said. “I don’t. But I’m going to need someone as Lak, someone I can trust.” He looked for a moment at the images on the wall, and then back at Ingray. “E said if you won’t be Lak, it’s my fault and I’ll just have to deal with that. I don’t think e’s being fair. E always favored you.”
“Maybe e has.” Ingray had begun to realize that Danach was probably right about that. “But it doesn’t matter. Mama offered me her name, and I told her I didn’t want it. Because I don’t. I don’t want to be an Assembly representative. I don’t want to be a prolocutor.” But maybe she wanted Danach to remember that she could have been. If she’d wanted it. “And I don’t want to be the chief of staff for a representative or a prolocutor. I just want to be Ingray Aughskold.” He stared at her, plainly disbelieving.
“They’re boarding the shuttle,” said Taucris, as uniformed children began filing by.
“Here, wait,” said Ingray. Walked over to a kiosk and got an A Visit to Hwae Station card. Walked back to where Danach stood, Taucris watching him warily. “Do you have a brush?” He produced one from somewhere in his jacket. Ingray’s arm was still in its corrective, so Taucris held the card steady as Ingray wrote, Congratulations to the new Netano, from your sister Ingray, and the date. She handed the brush back to Danach, and then the card. “There. I could have had it, but I turned it down. So now you know for certain that I don’t want it, and I’m no threat to you.”