A Covenant of Justice (40 page)

“And what do you want from us, Father?” the heavy-muscled woman said. “What do you want us to do?”

“First, I want you to stop calling me ‘Father,'” Harry said. “Second, I want you to listen to what the delegates have come here to say. I want you to listen and listen and listen, for as long as it takes to hear all the grievances—every single one. And then, and only then, I want you to do the job you came here to do. If the system has broken, then either fix it or give us one that works.”

“Will you participate in this process?” asked the woman. “We need you.”

Harry shook his head. “My presence will only pull the process off purpose.”

The frail man blocked Harry's path. “No. On the contrary, your august presence will only validate the proceedings. Already the rumors have begun circulating that the immortal has come to the disk. If you don't participate, the Phaestor will say that you don't support the process. They will argue that the Speaking lacks credential. Already, d'Vashti has challenged the Unification, because the Willowar TimeBand has disappeared.” The frail man took Harry's hands in his own. “Please, join with us. We need you more than you realize.”

“No! You must do this without me,” Harry insisted.

The heavy-muscled woman looked at the old man defiantly. “Will you reconsider that decision?”

“No, I won't.”

“Then hear this, Harry Mertz. Last night, the TimeBinders spoke together—not as a Unification, only as individuals. We took a vote. If you won't participate in this Gathering, then neither will we. We will announce that we cannot proceed without you, and we will return to our homes.”

Harry's eyes went wide in shock, horror, and finally anger. “You idiots! Don't you understand that you dismantle your own authority that way?”

“Nevertheless, we will stand by our vote. Will you participate or do we go home?”

Harry hung his head in shame and stared at his feet. He looked up at the sky. He looked around the empty Forum facility. He sighed. He took a breath. He scratched his cheek. He said a word that no one had spoken for five millennia. He wiped his nose. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said.

“So you will participate then?”

Reluctantly, Harry nodded. “I will make myself available to you.”

“Thank you. We want you to do the Speaking at the Unification—”

This time, Harry said a whole bunch of words that no one had spoken for five millennia. The two TimeBinders understood the language of the words, but not the entire cultural context. Later they would spend some time remembering; the frail man would blush; the heavy-muscled woman would laugh uproariously.

Elsewhere on the disk, Ota confronted an officer of The Great Palethetic Import and Export Distribution Consortium. The bioform politely said, “Captain Campbell wants to know what recompense we can expect from you.”

The man tried to brush it aside. “We had a fair contract—”

“You didn't honor it. You sold us overage pfingle eggs.”

“We sold you four-month, green pfingle eggs.”

“You sold us three-month eggs. We expect a full refund on our cargo deposit.”

“You may have to wait until Hell freezes over.”

“If necessary, we'll push that particular planet out of its orbit to guarantee that fact. Nevertheless, we will demand a settlement on this issue. Perhaps you've heard of Captain Campbell's brinewood salon? You might want to consider what that particular artifact might mean to you and your colleagues.”

The man grinned at Ota. “You can't scare me. I've heard from a reliable source that a Regency marshal has an arrest warrant for your Captain and her entire crew of malcontents, criminals, and terrorists. My company will probably offer the highest bid on your starship, just so we can see the expression on Captain Campbell's face.”

Elsewhere on the disk, Star-Captain Neena Linn-Campbell addressed a gathering of officials of the Spacer's Guild. Despite her reputation for reckless words and angry actions, she lowered her voice and spoke with tact and diplomacy. She spoke with candor. But, she also said many things that the Guild officials did not want to hear. Their faces froze as she discussed the need to restructure the Guild. The Guild had caved in to the Phaestor tyranny, leaving itself blind and toothless. As a result, the Vampires controlled the commerce of the Cluster, no one else.

Captain Campbell spoke all of this patiently, and then acknowledged, “I know that you do not want to hear bad news. And what I have said here will not give you cause to cheer me. But you need to know this—I have had my ship's Intelligence Engine exchanging data with the Intelligence Engines of every other ship that has come here to the Forum. We have compiled some very interesting statistics.

“Four hundred years ago, the construction rate for independent new vessels in the Palethetic Cluster began to level off. One hundred years ago, it began to actually decline. This contradicts all of the long-term growth predictions that we should have seen realized by now. In looking underneath these statistics, we have discovered that starship construction actually increased during the past half-millennium; but the Phaestor aristocracy has taken control of an increasing majority of those new vessels.

“It seems to me—and to many others—that the Phaestor intend to take over all interstellar shipping and commerce. In those markets that they already control, we've seen prohibitive user-fees and tariffs. I don't have to list them for you; Guild ships no longer choose to serve those markets, because of what we euphemistically call ‘local restrictions.' Freebooters serve some of those markets. I suggest you pay some attention to what the freebooters have discovered about the Vampire idea of free trade.

“I will make this information available to anyone who wants it. I think you should take it as a warning. They intend to put us all out of business and feed on our bones.”

The head of the committee nodded sympathetically. “We've heard about your problems, Captain Campbell. We sympathize with your situation, but we don't believe that your conclusions reflect an accurate understanding of the—”

At this point Neena Linn-Campbell finally lost her composure. “Take your sympathy, fold it into a sharp-cornered object, and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine,” she said. “If this Guild had done its job properly, you wouldn't have to offer me sympathy; you could offer me congratulations instead. How much more sympathy will you need to offer to the other Captains here when the Vampires come for them next?”

Elsewhere on the disk, Lee-1169 came silently to a small clearing. He stood alone, with his hands clasped before him. He bowed his head and allowed himself a small prayer of memory for the two thousand genetically identical individuals that the Dragons and Vampires had hunted down and murdered. He stood there for a long time, letting tears roll softly down his cheeks.

“Lee—” a distant voice called, a childish voice. “Hi, Lee—?”

Lee-1169 turned around to see two men and a prepubescent boy approaching. Surprise registered on his face like an impact. His mouth fell open. “Lee?” he called back. “Hi, Lee—?”

The boy broke into a run and came trotting eagerly up to him, yelling in delight. Lee-1169 recognized his own features at a younger age. He felt a hot flush of emotion rising up through him.

“1714,” said the boy, introducing himself happily. He held out both his hands in a long-familiar ritual of greeting.

“1169,” Lee replied. He took the boy's hands gratefully, and the two just looked at each other, beaming in mutual recognition and pride. “You fill me with joy,” 1169 said. “I had not known that any of us had survived.”

“Not many,” said the Lee-1714, “but enough.” He pulled himself into his older brother's arms and the two of them hugged intensely. By the time they released each other, the two other men—also both Lees—had come up alongside them.

“1066,” said one, holding out his hands to 1169.

“984,” said the other, taking 1169's hands in turn.

One by one, they hugged each other. And now fresh tears rolled down all of their cheeks. “We've survived the worst,” said 984. “We'll rebuild—and we'll grow stronger than ever.”

At that, 1169 smiled, but his expression had a bittersweet edge. “Just us four?”

“No,” said 1066. “We have twenty-two other brothers scattered safely around the Cluster. Perhaps more, but we have definitely located those. Don't worry; they have all found safe places to hide. When the time comes that we can reunite ourselves, we will. For the moment, we bide our time and—” He stopped, his face hardening as he caught sight of something approaching from another direction.

1169 turned around to see Kask, the Dragon approaching. The Dragon saw them at the same time.

Lee-1169 looked sideways. He moved fast and caught his Lee-1066's arm before the gun left the holster. “No,” he said. “Not that one.”

“You defend a Dragon? One of the killers of your brothers?”

“Not that Dragon. Trust me. Please.” Lee-1169 stepped in front of Lee-1066 and stared deeply into his eyes. “I know that Dragon. He saved my life. If we ever want peace between Dragons and ourselves, it has to start here—with us. Please, let me handle this.” Lee-1169 turned around to face Kask.

The Dragon's face had become a mask of conflicting emotions. His old convictions fought with his new ones. He believed in honor—but he didn't know what actions really represented honorable behavior anymore. He shifted his feet nervously; his tail lashed back and forth.

“Kask—” Lee-1169 approached him cautiously. “I want you to meet my brothers.”

The Dragon grumbled something unintelligible.

Lee-1169 held out his hands to him, the same greeting he had just offered his brothers. “You and I have shared much together. I think we know each other better than any Lee and any Dragon have ever known each other before.”

Kask grunted.

“Listen to me then. You have lost your brother Keeda, and now that I know you this well, I know something of what you felt then and what you must feel now. I cannot share all of your sorrow, but I claim a piece of it, because I care about you. I cannot bring your brother back, but please let me share my brothers with you. If I can share your sorrow, Kask, then you can share my joy at discovering that some of my brothers still live.”

Kask shook his huge head. “I cannot.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No,” the Dragon rumbled. “I have taken an oath to kill Lee's wherever I find them. I have already broken that oath once. If I meet your brothers, I will have to break it three more times. Or I will have to keep it four times. Please do not do this to me, Lee-1169.”

Lee nodded. “I understand. Kask—?”

The Dragon turned back to him. “What?”

“May I ask you one other favor then?”

“If I can.”

“Please, let me know what it would take to release you from that oath? My brothers have an oath too that I would like them to forswear. Perhaps you and I can find a way to create peace among our families?”

The Dragon hesitated. “I will consider it,” he said, after a moment. And then he lumbered away.

Lee-1169 turned back to his brothers. They stared at him as if he had become something alien and monstrous. “Hear me out,” he said. “I'll tell you my history. And then maybe you'll understand. And then, if you still believe we can never have peace, I'll accept the decision of the family.” He began speaking quietly. He began by telling them of the events in the Old City detainment on Thoska-Roole, of two trackers named Sawyer and Finn Markham, of a dog-boy named Ibaka, an Arbiter named Harry Mertz, a Star-Captain called Neena Linn-Campbell, a bioform named Ota, a TimeBinder, a doctor, a Vampire, a child—and even, of a Dragon named Kask. . . .

Elsewhere on the disk of the Forum, three TimeBinders walked together. The smallest of them, a young dark girl, spoke knowledgeably to the other two—a frail-looking man and a heavily muscled woman. She went on at some length about her experiences and the other two nodded in understanding as they listened. Following at a distance, the TimeBinder's father and her servant both watched with a strange sense of pride.

Elsewhere on the disk, three Loyers argued over the philosophies necessary for a Cluster-wide standard of justice. One of them, the eldest, clicked its mandibles thoughtfully and wondered aloud about the wisdom of including humans in any new government. “This one has never believed that humans have the rationality for self-government.”

“Yes, I agree entirely,” the second one replied, as it chewed on the carcass of a mutated rat. “But of all the species represented here, which one do you think will behave so foolishly as to accept the responsibilities involved?”

“True,” acknowledged the third, rubbing its foreclaws over its carapace in a ritual cleaning. “For that reason alone, the rest of us
need
them. If only they didn't
smell
so bad. . . .”

Elsewhere on the disk, Robin had found a gathering of androids and joined them cautiously. Although technically human, most androids felt profound feelings of alienation from ‘natural humans.' Few of them had ever admitted it around their human friends, but among themselves, it often came up as a topic of conversation—the feelings of rage, attraction, shame, despair, and hurt.

Much of this had to do with the fact that contractors often created androids without full sexuality. As a result, adult androids usually felt cheated, betrayed, disabled, and resentful. Most had learned not to express these feelings; even worse, most had learned not even to admit these feelings to themselves, let alone each other. They pretended happiness or competence or even mechanical professionalism—anything but their own true selves. Androids often committed suicide. Few humans ever understood why, and assumed both correctly and erroneously at the same time that the flaw lay in the original blueprint for construction.