City of Pearl

  “And the third team?”

  “On your island, Aras. They have come for you.”

  Aras thought it was a foolish waste of military resources to commit troops to settle an ancient grudge. It was the kind of gesture he would have saved for a quiet moment, if wess’har had been the kind of people who cared about revenge. They weren’t. But Aras’s genes were at least a fraction human, and another fraction isenj; and these invaders were in his protectorate, near Constantine, within striking distance of both his friends and the unpredictable new gethes.

  “Then they shall find me,” he said. “I will see their journey isn’t wasted.”

  23

  THETIS THETIS THETIS

  THIS IS WARSHIP ACTAEON ACTAEON ACTAEON

  THETIS THETIS THETIS

  THIS IS WARSHIP ACTAEON ACTAEON ACTAEON

  CALLSIGN 67 XBN. I HAVE CHANNEL 175.

  ENTERING CAVANAGH SYSTEM 15758659

  RESPOND CHANNEL 175

  “I know you all hate my guts,” said Shan. “But, with immediate effect, you’re all confined to camp until further notice.”

  The mess hall was quiet. Lindsay had expected at least some muttered expletive, but the payload were silent. The last time Shan had assembled them in this room, she had announced that Surendra Parekh had just been handed over to Aras. They seemed to know her next announcement was going to be equally unpleasant. Lindsay propped her backside on the edge of a table. She hoped Shan would excuse her lack of military posture, but her back was killing her and her legs ached. And it was still two months before the baby was due.

  “I’ve had two messages today,” Shan continued. “One was from the wess’har command post on the mainland to warn us that an isenj armed unit has landed on the island. The other was sitting in the buffer, and it was from a European federal ship called Actaeon, which has now entered the Cavanagh system. We’ve got company.”

  Lindsay had to hand it to Shan. She had a sense of understated drama. Or perhaps she had just given up wondering about the best way to break bad news to people.

  “Is that it?” said Galvin. “Another ship? What are they here for?”

  “I thought you might be more concerned about having a commando war going on in our backyard,” said Shan.

  “But Actaeon?”

  “We’ve been gone a long time. New propulsion systems, faster ships. They set out fifty years after we did and they caught us up.”

  “Are we going home?” asked Rayat.

  “I don’t know. I sent a standby response. I’ll flash them as soon as Thetis is in position again. Until then, no outgoing traffic, okay? I want that link kept clear.”

  “Aren’t we pleased to see them?”

  “Okay. Let’s get the finger paints out. Actaeon is chummy with the isenj. We’re in a wess’har protectorate, and the wess’har and isenj are still at war. We need to evacuate but we can’t as long as there are isenj troops around. So we wait and see. In the meantime, we sit tight and get ready to leave at short notice.”

  “How do you know they’ve been in contact with the isenj?” asked Rayat.

  “The wess’har told me so, and they’re pretty pissed off about it. I imagine they’re questioning which side we’ll be on.”

  Rayat raked his fingers through his hair. “Shit.”

  “For once, Dr. Rayat, I agree with you entirely,”

  Lindsay followed Shan out into the compound. She slowed down to let her catch up.

  “You okay?” Shan asked. “Don’t you think you should be resting?”

  Lindsay didn’t want to give in. It was bad enough having to dispense with her uniform and wear the shapeless beige shifts the colony had given her to accommodate her growing belly. She didn’t feel much like an officer at all. Shan looked at her with an expression that she couldn’t help feeling was pity, and not the positive kind.

  “Bad time for a rest,” Lindsay said. “My blood pressure is fine. Honest.”

  “If I were you, I’d make my way over to Constantine’s infirmary and sit this one out. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “You might be in overall command but the military side is still mine, Shan.” She had leave to call her that now, but the familiarity still felt odd in her mouth. “I promise you I’ll do it all from my chair. As of now, shuttles are on standby maintenance, the detachment is rostered for hostilities, and Hugel will establish a field hospital in the biohaz room. We’re ready.”

  I’m not ill, she thought. This is a temporary inconvenience. But she knew what happened when women had babies, and she wanted to do her military thinking before her body was totally hijacked by hormonal turmoil and a far narrower focus. And she had overseen evacuations before. This, for all its exotic location and combatants, was no different.

  “Perimeter set?” Shan asked.

  “Yes, but I’d still be happier if we primed it.”

  “I don’t want any own goals this time. Besides, I don’t think we’re a target. Not for the isenj, anyway.”

  “How’s your friend taking all this?”

  “Aras? I haven’t seen him since before I heard about the isenj landing. My guess would be that they’re just going to take out the Temporary City. If it was a mass invasion, we’d have known by now.”

  “If we don’t get sucked into this, the wess’har might not see us as potential hostiles.”

  “And what about the colonists? One thing’s clear, if we need to evacuate, there’s no quick way of moving a thousand people with two shuttles.” She looked distracted for a moment, than snapped back to the here and now again. “That’s assuming they wanted to go, which I don’t think they will. I’m heading over there now.”

  “Will you be okay on your own? I could get Bennett to—”

  Shan hitched up the back of her waistcoat and indicated her hand weapon, stuffed in the back of her belt. “I might be an amateur when it comes to military matters, but this won’t be the first rough neighborhood I’ve walked through. Don’t you worry about me.”

  Lindsay watched her stride off at a pace she could only envy, then turned and walked carefully back to the mess hall. Rayat and Galvin dogged her steps as she approached.

  “This might be our last chance to get some field study in,” said Galvin. “You sure that the curfew needs to start now?”

  Lindsay was starting to get very tired of civilians. She straightened up as stiffly as a seven-month pregnant woman ever could.

  “It’s already in force,” she said, and stared at them in silence until they walked away.

  Aras had never seen Josh with a weapon in his hand before. He was sitting at his kitchen table cleaning a rifle so old that Aras wondered how he would ever get it to fire again.

  “You won’t need that,” said Aras. “The isenj are coming for me.”

  “But I could stop an isenj with a 7.62mm round, could I not?”

  It was such an odd thing for Josh to say. Aras doubted if he had ever fired the gun. It surprised him that he even knew the caliber. “They’re flesh too,” Aras said. “But I would make that three or four rounds, if I wanted to be certain.”

  Josh wiped lubricant over the dismantled parts with all the care of a human mother washing an infant. “Good. It’s a thirty-round magazine.”

  There seemed little point arguing with him. If the weapon made him feel safe, that was fine. Aras watched him reassemble the rifle with a little assistance from scribbled instructions on a very old scrap of linen paper. That meant it had been Ben’s.

  “We have ten of these that will still fire,” said Josh. “And there are how many isenj, you say? Ten? Twelve? More than sufficient to deal with them, then.”

  “You’re not going hunting. If I don’t find them, they will come here for me. I won’t expose you to that.”

  “Aras, we don’t always approve of or even understand the things you do, but we do know two things. It’s because of you that we’re still here, and you’re part of this community. We can defend ourselves. There will be n
o act of self-sacrifice.”

  “I wasn’t planning one.”

  “Who isn’t?” Shan asked. “Bugger me, isn’t anyone looking after security here? I walked straight in. I could have been the isenj.”

  Aras hadn’t even heard her come down the steps and neither had Josh, judging the way he flinched at her voice. She looked at the rifle and raised her eyebrows.

  “So who’s that for?” she asked.

  “They are coming for Aras,” said Josh.

  Shan turned to Aras. “I was wondering if we could have a word. In private. No offense, Josh.”

  Josh went back to the reverent assembly of his rifle. Aras wondered if they had thought about calibrating the Earthmade weapon for local gravity. At point-blank range, that wouldn’t matter, but he hoped he could resolve matters before they had to find out. Once clear of the galleries, out on the surface, Shan rounded on him.

  “You’re taking your faith in your invulnerability a little too far,” she said. “Are you seriously going after them? Where’s your backup?”

  “Nobody knows the terrain like I do.”

  “I don’t think this is about getting your tracker badge, Aras. If they’ve got serious artillery of some sort, you won’t survive that.”

  “They won’t have.”

  “This is intelligence from your ussissi pals, is it?”

  “They have come to find me and kill me for what I did to Mjat. They will try to bring me down and cut me to pieces. They haven’t forgotten just how hard I am to kill.”

  “And I thought only humans nursed tribal grudges that long.”

  “It’s much easier to keep your hatred fresh when you have genetic memory. Shan, either I find them or they find me. What would you do? Would you live your life looking over your shoulder, or would you go out and seek the threat and finish it?”

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  “And I would rather that took place away from Constantine. That is the first place they will look for me, and they will regard the colony as wess’har regardless of what deal they have struck with Actaeon.”

  There were no workers in the fields today, although it was early autumn and there were the first winter root crops to lift. Everyone had gone below, into the depths of the colony.

  “I had come to ask about the gene bank,” said Shan. “What you’ve told me makes that a little more urgent. This might sound callous, but if the colony takes a direct hit, I’d hate to lose that material.”

  He understood completely. There was nothing brutal in her priorities at all: she had her mission, and there was little she could do to protect Constantine with a handful of troops. It was very wess’har of her not to attempt a meaningless gesture but to concentrate on what she could achieve for the future. And it was very human of him to feel a little uncomfortable to hear it.

  “I will arrange for the ussissi to transfer it to F’nar,” said Aras.

  “Thanks. Are you seriously going out after those isenj?”

  “I said so.”

  “I’m coming with you, then.”

  “No. Take sides now, and you could compromise your people.”

  “And the matriarchs will cut us some slack despite Actaeon, will they? We’re screwed either way.”

  “Shan, you make this judgment without knowing the isenj.”

  “But I know you. And I know the bezeri don’t want them here. That’s all I need to know.”

  It was what he wanted her to say. He didn’t need her strength and he didn’t need her expertise, but he needed to hear her say she would take the ultimate risk for him. It was enough. Josh was prepared to defend his people; Shan was prepared to defend him. He had not been wrong about her at all.

  But he wondered if she fully understood what he had done at Mjat. Humans were squeamish about such things. His one fear was that one day Shan would understand, and that she might see him as a monster too.

  Her pocket made that chirping sound. Someone was calling her on her swiss. She ignored it, looking into his face for a response.

  “You’re a good friend,” he said. “But the isenj are in more danger than I am. Go back to your people and wait.” The swiss was still eeping insistently. “You’re being summoned.”

  “Hang on.” Shan pulled out the swiss and flicked open the tiny screen that hung between two filaments like a bubble. He walked a few paces away to give her some privacy, but he heard her side of the conversation all too clearly. “Jesus Christ, when did that happen? Didn’t anyone try to keep an eye on them? Oh shit. No, wait until I get back. Have Bennett and Qureshi tool up and I’ll meet them at camp.”

  She snapped the swiss shut and shoved it hard into her pocket with that tight-lipped expression that told him she had run out of expletives. She didn’t talk at all like the colonists. He had learned a lot of new words from her, words that made Josh recoil.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Two of my payload have gone walkabout. Rayat and Galvin, like I couldn’t guess. Last chance to grab something live in case they’re evacuated.”

  “Too busy trying to stop people getting in rather than getting out.”

  “I suppose you have to admire their persistence. Personally, I don’t care what happens to them—I’m more worried about another bezeri-level incident.”

  “And you’re going out looking for them?”

  “If you’re going out looking for isenj.”

  He wondered for a moment if she had set it up. But she couldn’t have known his plans. No, she had proved she was as good as her word. He was wrong to doubt her.

  “You know nothing about pursuit in this terrain,” said Aras.

  “I’m sure you’ll teach me,” she said. “First, though, I’d better pay my respects to Actaeon.”

  With Rayat and Galvin loose on the plain, Shan resented waiting the extra thirty minutes for Thetis to reach a point in its orbit where she could route a call through it. Aras waited patiently in the compound: Qureshi had orders to keep an eye on him in case he decided to start without her.

  It took four minutes for the comms operator to patch Shan in to the Actaeon’s commanding officer. He introduced himself as Captain Malcolm Okurt, and his voice was completely devoid of emotion.

  “Good evening, Superintendent,” he said. The audio was clear but the video link was shimmering. Okurt’s fatigues were the kind of average gray that any force could wear, and his badges were indistinct. It was remarkable that the tech was still compatible enough for them to see any image at all. “We were relieved to hear from you.”

  “We’re terrific,” Shan said, as flatly as she could manage. “And it’s late morning here. Now you’ve found us, could I ask you which government you represent? You’ll have to forgive us. We’ve been out of town a while.”

  “This is a joint mission of the Federal European Union Foreign Office, the Confederation of European Industry and the Sinostates consortium.”

  “And you’re FEU Navy? A warship?”

  “Someone’s got to drive. No commercial sponsorship, no warships.”

  “My. We have been away a long time, haven’t we?”

  There was a pause. If Okurt was offended by her tone, he wasn’t about to let her know. “We’ve had contact from what appears to be the wess’har government, so we’re aware of the local difficulties in this sector. We’ll be keeping a low profile for the time being. When we get clearance for landing a shuttle, are there any supplies you need?”

  “I don’t think you’re going to be landing here any time soon. Didn’t the isenj explain the situation to you?”

  A pause. A very long pause. Gotcha, Shan thought. Okurt could now sweat over how she knew he had been communicating with the isenj.

  “I understand they don’t enjoy good diplomatic relations with the wess’har,” he said at last.

  “I might like to evacuate my people if you’re minded to head out of wess’har space. Just to be on the safe side.”

  “How many are we talking about?”

  “Anywhe
re between twelve and one thousand.”

  “Say again?”

  “There’s a colony here.”

  “We have nowhere near that capacity.”

  Shan consoled herself with the thought that the colonists would not leave anyway. It was just a test question, a copper’s trick. “Can you accommodate seven military personnel and seven civilians, then?”

  “We can do that.” He had probably dismissed her request as self-interest. She didn’t need to explain herself. “Thank you for your advice, Superintendent. It’s very helpful indeed. We’ll stand off and await your evacuation plans.”

  “Thetis out,” said Shan.

  She nodded at Bennett and he closed the link. The three of them looked at each other. “So what salient points did he leave out?” she asked.

  Lindsay folded her hands over her belly. “Well, if I were Actaeon, I’d probably say why I’d come twenty-five light-years—to rescue, to explore, whatever. They weren’t just passing by.”

  “He had no reason to assume we were lost or dead, either, seeing as nobody would have been expecting to receive transmissions from us for twenty-five years after landing. They’re not here for a rescue.”

  “I note you didn’t ask Okurt that.”

  “I didn’t need to. It’s an industry mission, and he’s just the chauffeur. Besides, I always found out more from what suspects omitted to tell me than anything else.” Now she took a gamble: Lindsay would find out about the isenj comms link soon enough. She would rather she heard it from her. “If you had the ability to send instantaneous messages to Earth, no time delay, pronto, would you mention that when you made contact?”

  Lindsay and Bennett stared at her. After seventy-five years neither had anyone at home who might be waiting for a call. But it was potential contact with home regardless, and it had enormous emotional meaning beyond the scientific amazement value.

  “I hope I’ve understood you correctly,” Lindsay said. “If they can do that, why didn’t they flash us before they left? Now that’s spooky.”