Law of Survival (36 page)

Anais Ulanova then entered, partnered with a young
woman who had the look of the hurriedly briefed about her. Prime Minister Li Cao's chief aide, followed by the PM herself. Arrangements at table, murmured greetings in High Vynshàrau and English, the scrape of seats. Only one seat remained empty at the table now, the lowest seat at the head of the V.

Jani looked to the door, and prayed. To Ganesha. To whichever god cared to listen. She wondered if she could dash to the door before Burkett could stop her, mount a search through the winding halls of the embassy until she found whom she sought. Until she made sure Nema still lived.

Then Sànalàn rose, crossed her right arm over her chest until she grasped her shoulder, and spoke, flowing syllables uttered in a high keen. The official opening of the conclave, a prayer to Shiou to instill order, that had once been Nema's duty to perform.

Jani watched the figures seated at the table. All sat with their heads high, their eyes closed, the standard idomeni position of invocation. Not a word had they said about Nema's absence.
How humanish of them.
Yet somehow, the determined ignorance of the situation imbued the empty chair at the head of the table with a strange power, like the gap in a demiskimmer formation left to commemorate a missing pilot.

Anais broke this particular formation only once, looking out toward the crowd until she saw Jani. The cold light of triumph shimmered in her eyes as she turned back to the table.

It took some time for the sound to cut through Sànalàn's pitched voice. By the time Jani heard it, she had the impression it had gone on for some time. The muffled sounds of argument, audible through the panel. Faces turned toward the door.

Then the panel flew aside and Nema swept in, a guard at his heels. Jani didn't recognize him at first—his sheared head looked even more startling in the bright light of the room. He wore his off-white shirt and trousers, his red-cuffed overrobe and rings. His earrings glittered in garish array, fully exposed as they now were to the light. He looked traditional in every way, but for the hair.

He scanned the rows of banked seats. Jani knew he searched for her—she raised a hand to gain his attention.

“Nìa.” Nema's face seemed to split as he bared his teeth. “You are most well, in spite of your battle!”

“Inshah.” Jani was dimly aware of Burkett leaning forward to cradle his head in his hands. “Yes, I am well.”

“I had heard you had been
shot.”

“Grazed, inshah.” Jani felt the tension suffuse the air around her. She watched Ulanova at the table, her face averted, her back straight.

“Grazed.” Nema seemed to ponder the word. “My Anais's Lescaux tried to kill you.”

“Tsecha.”
Shai's shoulders rounded in threat. “You have been removed from these proceedings. You have received warnings to not interfere. You have disobeyed.”

“You removed Égri nìRau Tsecha from the proceedings, Shai. The ambassador of the Shèrá worldskein. I am not here as such.” He ignored the guard who stood at his shoulder, which seemed a safe thing to do—her reluctance to lay hands upon her Chief Propitiator was evident in her posture. Instead, he directed his attention toward the Elyan Haárin dominant. “I come here as Tsecha Égri, dominant of the Earth Haárin, sect-sharer with the Elyan Haárin. It is they I ask for the privilege to sit at this table. It is their right to extend or deny.”

The Elyan Haárin dominant looked at her suborn, who responded with a truncated hand flip that Jani couldn't interpret. Then they leaned close to one another and took turns speaking in each other's ears, a profoundly humanish conduct that caused Shai to round her shoulders even more and set the human half of the room abuzz.

“Ná Feyó?” Shai barked after the conversation had gone on for some time. “Do you agree to ní Tsecha's request?” Her tone implied that any agreement would be looked on with disfavor. Murmurs filled the air again when the assembled realized that she had called Tsecha by his true Haárin title, not the dressed-up “Rau” version.

Feyó lifted her head. “I do with gratitude, and truly, nìaRauta.” Her English rang mellow and slightly drawled. She reminded Jani of Dolly Aryton at her most formal, and like
the Hands of Might, she radiated calm. “He should sit next to me.” She indicated the space between her and her suborn.

The assembled grew restive as a guard was dispatched to find a chair of the proper height. Burkett took the opportunity to lean back. “What the hell is going on, Kilian?”

Jani grinned down at him. “I think it's the new order asserting itself, General.”

“New
order? I haven't gotten used to the old one yet.” He dug into the briefbag that the major had handed off to him during the seating, and pulled out a recording board to take notes.

Nema, meanwhile, walked to his seat beside Feyó, letting his hand trail along the back of his former seat at the point of the V. “I have right of suborn, ná Feyó?” he asked as he sat.

“Yes, nìR—” Feyó stopped herself. The new order had apparently caught her by surprise, as well. “Yes, ní Tsecha.”

“Nìa?” Nema held out his hand toward Jani. “Come.”

Jani hesitated as every face in the room, humanish and idomeni, turned toward her. Then she rose and stepped out onto the floor. Nema bared his teeth when he spotted the ring; the look sombered when he caught sight of the braided soulcloth. “So the soldier has at last reclaimed her soul.” He took her hand and squeezed it in most humanish reassurance.

Jani's aches had receded in the background, supplanted by a soft roaring that filled her head.
Welcome to the way it is.
She took her place at the meeting table, in a hastily acquired highseat next to Feyó's suborn. She looked across the V, and found herself the focus of distressed examination by PM Cao and her aide. Jani bared her teeth wide, which only seemed to alarm them more.

The blue-clad Elyan Haárin clerk set a folder before Nema, then walked downtable and handed one to Jani. Their eyes met. The Haárin's widened. Then she bared her teeth.
“Hah!
Ná Kièrshia! I rejoice that Lescaux did not kill you, so I could laugh at your eyes!” Her sharp laugh cut through the room, an open acknowledgment of everything the humanish avoided, passed over, or studied with sidelong glances.

The renewed conversational buzz settled eventually.
“Now.” Shai lifted her right hand upward in supplication.
“Now,
we begin.”

 

“—not possible.” Ulanova's aide shook her head. “Our position has not changed from that of early this week. The Haárin components cannot be readily retrofitted to the existing plant, and the time it would take to develop the necessary adaptive technology would be better spent designing and building a new facility.”

“Your Elyan governor signed a contract with us,” Feyó said softly, “through his Department of Utilities suborn.”

“Suborns make mistakes, Nìa Feyó.” PM Cao closed her left hand into a fist and held it up to chest height, palm-side facing up. “Their dominants cannot always be held responsible for what they do.” She smiled, but the expression soon froze when she heard Shai's suborn laugh and saw the increasing curvature of Shai's shoulders.

Jani bit her lip and avoided Nema's stare, which was at that moment burning a hole in the side of her face.
I will not laugh at my Prime Minister.
Not even when she calls a made-sect Haárin by a born-sect title and compounds the offense by gesturing in High Vynshàrau that said Haárin is acting like a brat, thus insulting the Suborn Oligarch in the process.

“I am not born-sect, Your Excellency.” Feyó kept her voice level and her hands folded on the table. “And I do not believe that I am acting as foolish.”

Cao's golden face darkened. “I meant no offense, nì—” The apology fizzled as she tried to figure out exactly what her offense had been.

“No, I know you did not, Your Excellency.” Shai uncurved her shoulders, but only a little. “Humanish never do. They make mistakes, because their suborns do not instruct them properly, and they cannot be expected to know such, because they are not responsible.”

Cao's eyes widened in surprise. She looked at Nema, who gestured in commiseration, but didn't speak.

Well, you wanted him out and you got your wish. Now you get to deal with Shai, who doesn't like you and won't cut you
any slack when you garble her languages.
Jani flipped the file folder open, then shut it. “We cannot allow insults, unintentional or otherwise, to obscure the matter we are assembled here to discuss. Karistos city engineers have stated that the soonest the new treatment plant can be constructed and qualified for use is eighteen months from the day of ground-breaking. This means a new plant is at least two years away. The current facility is already functioning at maximum and the feeling is that service cut-offs will need to be instituted in order to meet demand for the coming summer. These same engineers have also stated, in writing, that the Haárin microbial filter array being offered for retrofit can be in-line within sixty Common days and if put in place will alleviate the need for any type of service slowdown.” She looked across the table to find a bank of humanish faces regarding her as the enemy. “Will someone tell me what the problem is!”

Ulanova spoke slowly, grudgingly, as if any word spoken to Jani was one word too many. “My engineers disagree.”

And so it went. Two hours passed before Cao requested a recess, which Shai reluctantly granted.

 

“She'll just keep pitting her experts against Elyas's experts, and she'll win because she's here and they're there.” Kern Standish kicked at the ground and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Why aren't the Elyan engineers here?” Jani leaned against a tree to straighten her back. She had left Nema to the Elyan Haárin and Burkett to his major, and had adjourned to the allowed gardens with Kern and the other Cabinet aides she had worked with over the months. She had steeled herself against their reactions to her appearance, but thus far had fielded no more than a few pointed stares. “If they'd left Elyas the same time as the Haárin, they'd have been here.”

“They were supposed to be,” a young woman from AgMin piped. “All hell broke loose just before they were scheduled to leave. A shuttleport nav rig blitzed out—nothing could leave the ground for four days.”

Jani looked at the averted faces around her. “Sabotage?”
She received a mime's chorus of shrugs and headshakes in reply. “Did anyone see where Ulanova went after we adjourned?”

“The public veranda, like usual,” replied the AgMin aide.

“I'll see you inside.” Jani set off in that direction.

“Gonna give her the evil eye?” One of the Treasury aides, who had been silent up until then, shot Jani a guilty glance, then turned his back.

Kern bristled. “Damn it, Maurier, you really are as stupid as you look, aren't you?”

“Well, it's one more idea than we have at the moment.” Jani forced a smile and received a few in return, which under the circumstances was probably the best she could hope for.

She cut around the outer perimeter wall of the public veranda. As she neared the entry that led out to the gardens, she heard voices, Cao's and Ulanova's.

“—smoothing things with Shai will be difficult, Ani.”

“We'll think of something.”

“I suppose we'll have to pay attention during our language lessons from now on.” Cao's voice held a bite she never let her public hear. “Do you think they'll send Tsecha home?”

There was a weighty pause before Ulanova replied. “It is to be hoped.”

“Do you think so?” Cao sounded doubtful. “I would miss him. Even when he aggravated the hell out of me, I felt no malice in him.”

“He only hides it better than the rest.”

“Hmm.” Now it was Cao's turn to ponder. “I think this revelation puts a new spin on things, no matter what you say.”

“We all knew she was a medical freak, Li. Shroud's pet experiment. If she thinks this qualifies her as some sort of emissary, it is up to us to let her know that she is mistaken. We will have to wait until after Tsecha is recalled, of course—she is his favorite. But we shouldn't have to put up with either of them for much longer.”

“As you say.” The high-pitched click of heels on tile sounded. “I have to talk to the moderates before we recon
vene, make sure they understand our point of view.” The steps silenced. “Will you be all right, Ani?”

“Of course.” Ulanova's voice sounded smooth and strong. “I'll meet you inside.”

Jani waited until she heard the door to the embassy close. Then she stepped through the opening and onto the veranda.

Ulanova stood before a column-like fountain. She held one hand under the gentle stream and let it trickle over her fingers. She appeared thoughtful, calmer than she had in the courtyard, but still not relaxed.

Jani took another step, making sure that her shoes scraped against the tile. “Have you visited your Doc Chief in hospital, Your Excellency?”

Ulanova spun around. Water sprayed from her fingers, splashing over her tunic and arcing through the air.

“She was dying when they brought her in.” Jani tried to clasp her hands behind her back, but her cracked collarbone balked and she had to settle for sliding them in her pockets. “They've jacked a DeVries shunt into her brain. It will be some time before they know if she'll recover, and to what extent.” As Jani circled, Ulanova kept turning ever so slowly so that she faced her at all times.

Jani kept talking. Idomeni meeting breaks were short, and she knew she didn't have much time. “She and I found paper linking Peter to the Helier meetings during which
L'araignée
was formed. That paper also shows that he met with you during your trips to Exterior Main on Amsun. His meetings with you followed his trips to Helier. Coincidence, I'm sure you'll say.”