City of Pearl

  “It’s not their tech. It’s isenj.”

  “I get the feeling we haven’t been invited to the party,” said Bennett. Shan wasn’t sure if he was referring to Actaeon’s withholding of information or to hers.

  “What do we tell the payload?” Lindsay asked.

  Shan shrugged. “Tell them the truth.”

  “And have you told us everything you know, ma’am?” Lindsay asked.

  “No,” Shan said.

  “Do you want to elaborate on that?”

  “No. I’ve told you everything you need to know to stay alive. The rest wouldn’t help you one bit—far from it in fact. I said I’d get you back in one piece and I meant it.”

  “What about the gene bank?” asked Bennett. “Shouldn’t we be making arrangements to get that shipped out now?”

  Shan ran her finger over the console and wiped a trail through the sand-colored dust, briefly distracted by poor housekeeping and wondering why a bored payload didn’t get on with some cleaning duties. “I won’t be handing anything over to any government that has to work that closely with corporations,” she said. “It’s one more thing Perault didn’t bargain on when she briefed me.”

  It was hard to blow out a mission that had taken her on what was effectively a one-way trip. Home seemed to have vanished. She now had no idea what she was going to do with that gene bank. Maybe leaving it with the wess’har was the most prudent option. The only thing she knew for certain at that moment was that the matriarchs could be trusted not to misuse it.

  “Time we got going, ma’am,” said Bennett. “While we’ve still got the light. Wouldn’t want Dr. Rayat and Dr. Galvin to fall into a bog, would we?”

  “Wouldn’t we?” said Shan.

  24

  While your wish to support your comrades is understandable, I must ask you to exercise restraint. If they find themselves in difficulty because they are now seen as allies of the wess’har, that is unfortunate: your priority is the continued development of an understanding with the isenj. The isenj see the wess’har as an occupying army. Without isenj cooperation, we will never establish a base on CS2. I think the conclusion is clear. Fortunately, the isenj are prepared to accept that the Thetis mission does not have the backing of the current Federal European Union.

  BIRSEN ERTEGUN, Undersecretary of State,

  FEU Foreign Office, to Commander Malcolm Okurt,

  CO Actaeon

  It was mid July, just hinting at autumn, and the bonecolored efte trees were still four meters high and sprouting great silver plumes of sticky floss that trapped unwary flyers. Even creatures the size of alyats and handhawks avoided flying too close. It was hard to think that those trees, seeming solid as the Earth oaks in the colony, would shrivel to nothing in weeks and leave a flat terrain scattered with sheet upon sheet of dead bark and fiber. Autumn was papermaking time for the colony. Efte was even more useful than hemp, strong enough to be felted and formed into laminate.

  It was an annual routine Aras didn’t want to see interrupted. He checked the charge indicator on his gevir, not wholly at ease with using a firing weapon again. Wess’har didn’t forget what they learned. He feared a little human fallibility had crept up on him.

  “Will the isenj be able to track us?” Shan asked.

  “I hope so,” said Aras. “I want this settled.”

  They were walking with Bennett and Qureshi along the wake of the missing scientists, detectable by the recently crushed groundcover that showed up as a bright track on Bennett’s bioscreen. The marine had a device just behind his ear that he tapped every so often before checking the readout on his palm. His battle-dress danced with broken gray-blue patterns of camouflage. And even to an isenj’s senses, he would appear the same temperature as everything around him. Aras thought that was a clever touch.

  “You have implants,” Aras said.

  Bennett tapped his device again. “They’re crap. I ought to be able to see that track up here.” He indicated his eyes. “Organic head-up display. But it’s so unreliable I’ve got to view it on the repeater here. God bless defense procurement.”

  “And you serve royalty?”

  “Haven’t had a monarchy anywhere in Europe for centuries, sir. Royal is just a very old title. We like tradition in the services.”

  “Don’t even try to work it out,” said Shan. “Come on, Ade, they can’t have got that far. Not carrying their gear.”

  “They could be ten kay from the camp by now.”

  “They’ll be in the bloody sea, then.”

  “Well, at least we haven’t come across any body parts yet. That’s always a good sign.”

  Aras wasn’t sure if that was a joke or not. “Alyats don’t leave any debris from their kills. Nor do sheven or esjen. They envelop and absorb everything.”

  His comment silenced them. Shan kept close to Aras. He found that rather touching: he needed no protection. But she did. She put a great deal of faith in her ballistic vest, but it was only designed to stop human weapons—a knife or a bullet. He had no idea if it would stop an isenj projectile.

  “Bugger,” said Bennett.

  He stopped and tapped his implant again.

  “What is it?” asked Shan.

  “Looks like someone drove an industrial floor polisher through here. Either that, or it’s vehicle tracks.”

  “Show me,” said Aras.

  Bennett held out his hand and Aras adjusted his perspective to the multicolor 3D representation of the landscape. Champciaux’s geophys scan, showing where Mjat had once stood and then fallen at his hand. Two broken lines of regular swirling patterns snaked into the tracks of Rayat and Galvin at an angle, then the walkers’ traces ended. It was a good guess for someone who had never seen isenj transport before.

  “I hate to jump to conclusions, but I reckon Rayat and Galvin either got a lift from the isenj or were taken by them,” said Shan. “And neither scenario fills me with confidence.”

  Bennett and Qureshi glanced at each other.

  “Let’s follow the tracks, then, shall we, ma’am?” said Qureshi. “Or would you rather we waited for backup?”

  Aras considered the possibility that the isenj had chanced across the two gethes and decided they would make excellent bait for him. He had no intention of disappointing them, and he wanted no more of Shan’s group to put themselves at risk.

  “We go on,” he said.

  Lindsay heaved herself into the seat at the comms console and answered the hail from Actaeon. On the screen was the image of Okurt’s second in command, Nichol Valiet, a lieutenant who didn’t look much older than Becken.

  “Thetis, officer commanding,” she said wearily.

  “Sorry, ma’am. Did I disturb you?”

  “No, just a heavy day.” He probably hadn’t realized she was pregnant. Of course: he couldn’t see her from the chest down. “Go ahead.”

  “Is Superintendent Frankland available?”

  “No. She’s gone off camp after a couple of the payload who’ve broken curfew.”

  “What curfew?”

  “Ours. What did you want her for?”

  “I just wanted to check where she was. This is an awkward subject to broach, ma’am, but we’ve had a communication from Dr. Rayat.”

  “Yeah, that’s one of the morons who decided to go walkabout during an armed incursion. How the hell did he manage to flash you up?”

  “He relayed his message from an isenj mobile unit. He’s with them.”

  Oh, God. Get off the link. I need to tell Shan before this goes pear-shaped. “And?”

  Valiet lapsed into silence. He was way out of his depth; Okurt should have called her himself. Lindsay used the trick she had learned from Eddie, the sleight of hand worked by simple silence. She waited. It was much harder than it looked.

  “He’s made some disturbing allegations about Frankland and we just wanted to verify some facts with you,” said Valiet. Silence was pretty effective. Lindsay was getting used to wielding it. She waited and h
e went on. “Dr. Rayat claims your skipper killed one of your party, Surendra Parekh.”

  “Rayat hasn’t been entirely comfortable with the restrictions placed on him by the indigenous government.”

  “Is he lying?”

  “Dr. Parekh was executed under local law for causing the death of an alien child.” She had, hadn’t she? It had been so clear-cut at the time, so completely wrong, and so utterly important that the native species was appeased. Now that she was being lulled back into the Earth way of doing things, Lindsay had a brief pang of doubt. It dissipated almost at once. “You should understand that the rules are very different here. You’re under wess’har sovereignty. Forget that, and you’re really going to get a nasty surprise.”

  “If Superintendent Frankland has exceeded her authority, we will have to take action against her, you realize that, don’t you?”

  That was her boss he was talking about. You rallied to your commander. You rallied to your friend. “If you try messing with Frankland, you’ll have to answer to me, so realize that.” The poker face and silent trap were thrown aside: this bastard needed to understand he would have to take them all on if he wanted Shan. “You have absolutely no jurisdiction here. If you think for one minute that you do, you’re endangering every one of us—and that includes my child. So keep your nose out of this, Lieutenant.”

  Lindsay hadn’t planned to drop her guard. But Shan was the pack leader, the alpha female. Nobody had the right to criticize her for doing what she needed to do to avoid disaster, least of all some jumped-up lieutenant who had never even set foot on this complex world.

  “Child?”

  “I’m pregnant. And no, don’t even try to exchange pleasantries with me. Give me Rayat’s last known position. It might seem smart to make friends with the isenj from where you are, but we’re about twenty kay from a wess’har garrison.”

  “We have orders not to cause offense to the isenj, ma’am.”

  “I’d be more worried about causing offense to Superintendent Frankland if I were you, or the wess’har, whichever gets hold of you first.”

  “Ma’am, can I request that you file your official report on the incident now? You’ve logged one, haven’t you? It’s regulation.”

  “You can discuss it directly with Superintendent Frankland when she returns.” She wasn’t going to get the position out of Valiet. No matter: Rayat had probably moved on by now, and the booties could track him with or without the information. She switched topics to disguise just how keen she was to avoid discussing Parekh. “Now, if you want to make yourselves useful, Eddie Michallat from BBChan wants to know if you can set up an interview down the line with the isenj, seeing as you’re such good friends.”

  “Isenj. Yes. They even have an interpreter who can speak English.” Valiet affected sudden chatty good humor, although his voice said otherwise. “It looks like a mongoose and the isenj look like—well, a pile of spiders. Is that what’s known as good TV?”

  “Eddie would probably like a real-time link as well, seeing as you’ve been so kind as to mention you have one.”

  “Okay. We’ll patch through the links. Have a good day.”

  Lindsay keyed the end command. “Bastard,” she said.

  Eddie had gone walkabout again and he wasn’t answering his comms link. Vani Paretti happened to be the closest to hand on the way to the mess hall. Lindsay caught his arm. “Could you tell Eddie his audience awaits? Or at least his interview link-up. He’ll have to negotiate the rest himself.”

  “Feeling all right?”

  “That tosser Rayat made contact with the isenj and he’s using their comms link.”

  “I hope he’s not transmitting data home—”

  “Don’t. Just don’t. I’m not in the mood.”

  Lindsay walked out into the compound and looked up to gauge the thickening clouds overhead. It had started to spit with fine rain, and that usually meant a heavy downpour wasn’t far behind.

  She wondered whether she should get Becken and Barencoin to have a word with Rayat in their highly persuasive way when Shan brought him back. Foul little shit, she thought. It was a cowardly, sniveling thing to do to whine to the Actaeon about Shan. It was almost a shame that the ship had shown up. Rayat could so easily have been dealt with and nobody would have been any the wiser.

  The violence of the thought caught her unawares. Bezer’ej had changed her; Shan had changed her. She understood now why sometimes you had to bend the rules, and wondered why they had never taught her that at the naval academy.

  She checked her bioscreen and alerted Qureshi and Bennett. She didn’t fancy being in Rayat’s shoes when Shan found out what he’d done.

  Ceret—Cavanagh’s Star—was setting. Aras judged that they had a half-hour of good visibility left, and he wondered if the marines’ implant-enhanced vision could cope with low light as well as his eyes could. Time would tell. He walked in Qureshi’s wake. Bennett marked a zigzag path between efte trees ahead of them, staring ahead to pick up images.

  He stopped and glanced down at his palm. “Six-fifty meters, dead ahead. Significant cluster of targets.”

  “How many?” said Aras.

  “Eight, nine.”

  Aras checked his gevir again. He had come to kill isenj. Most of the landing party was probably ahead of him and that meant he had to locate the others soon afterwards. It was more than his responsibility towards the bezeri. He wanted to send a clear message: he was still here and he would deal with them as he had dealt with Mjat.

  “Whoa there,” said Shan. “This is my shout.”

  She gave Bennett a look that made him fall in behind her and went striding ahead. Aras decided that if she put herself in danger he would have to intervene even if it offended her. She didn’t know isenj at all.

  She disappeared among the efte but he could still hear her boots brushing through undergrowth bent flat by the isenj vehicle. The sound stopped. Qureshi glanced at Bennett and they both took a more positive grip on their rifles. Then they caught up with Shan and saw what she had seen.

  Aras had forgotten how very odd an isenj would look to a human. They weren’t remotely humanoid; a gethes would have mistaken them for what they considered an animal. But these isenj stood clustered round their small vehicle, crossbow-like weapons in their oddly jointed arms, and Rayat and Galvin were sitting on the equivalent of the running board. They looked simply bewildered.

  Shan indicated stop with a carefully extended arm. “Let me see if I can talk to them,” she said. “They must be able to understand us if Rayat talked them into linking him up to Actaeon.”

  “We’re right here, remember,” said Bennett. Aras could smell that acid human tension rolling off him, but he showed no outward signs of fear. Neither he nor Qureshi had quite taken aim, but their readiness to fire would be visible even to an isenj. Aras hoped their weapons were accurate in this gravity. All his instincts told him to shoot now. He couldn’t understand why Shan felt the need for discussion.

  She stopped fifteen meters in front of the vehicle.

  “I command this group,” she said. “Are you holding my people?”

  There was a long pause. An answer came, but it was from some communications kit in the vehicle, the small raspy voice of a ussissi interpreter relayed from some remote station. “We have talked with them. We have no argument with men and women.”

  “Then perhaps Dr. Rayat and Dr. Galvin can come back to camp with me.”

  Qureshi reached in the pockets of her webbing, took out a hand-sized round object and began attaching it slowly and quietly to her weapon. “Might need to take out that vehicle,” she whispered to Aras. “If we can get Rayat and Galvin clear, that is. It’s times like this you wish Frankland was wired so we could direct her.”

  The isenj had moved forward. Rayat got up. Galvin looked afraid, her gaze darting from isenj to isenj. Shan stood calmly and clasped her hands behind her back.

  She’s going to fire. Aras hoped she was as sensible as he tho
ught she was. It wasn’t her war. She should have walked away from it.

  “We want only the wess’har,” said the disembodied interpreter. “We hold the doctors until we have the destroyer of Mjat.”

  Shan hesitated a beat. “He’s not mine to hand over. And I imagine you want continued good relations with humans, so if you harm my team, we will consider that an act of aggression.”

  Aras could smell her tension even from here. Don’t open fire. Qureshi had a grenade aimed at the vehicle. Bennett was kneeling down and his rifle was not quite against his shoulder, but only a movement short of full aim. Aras decided somebody would get hurt if he didn’t bring this to an end.

  He stepped forward out of the cover of the efte.

  “And I have come for you,” he said. “I drove your forefathers from this place and I will drive you from here too, because this is not your world, and you will destroy it.” And he raised his gevir. “Don’t hide behind the gethes. Come out.”

  Humans said that terrible events moved in slow time. He understood that now. The isenj surged forward, weapons aimed. Then Shan cannoned into him and sent him sprawling. He could hear Qureshi yelling, “Clear! Clear!” and the atta-atta-atta of gunfire from behind him.

  “Stay down,” Shan said, squatting over him, reaching for her hand weapon, but Aras sat up and saw a puff of vapor as a projectile smashed into her chest. She was thrown backwards with a great uff of breath as if it had winded her.

  His world froze for a moment and then he turned to return fire and hatred.

  A great explosion of air silenced everything for a few seconds and heat and smoke rolled across the clearing. Aras could see Qureshi was down, clutching her thigh, and Bennett was now moving from isenj to isenj, turning the bodies over with his boot, his rifle aimed at them.

  “All clear,” he called. “Oh shit. Galvin’s down, Rayat’s okay, I think. Izzy, you okay? Izzy? Hang on, I’m coming.”

  Aras could care nothing about Ismat Qureshi’s plight, nor Galvin’s, nor Rayat’s. Shan was sprawled on her back, eyes staring up at the darkening sky. Aras leaned over her.