Aneka Jansen 6: The Lowest Depths of Shame (32 page)

East was grinning, but that changed when Aneka turned her gaze on him. ‘You can stop thinking you’ve got my vote. I know damn well you’re only worried about losing out on the university. Where were your fucking ideals when you were voting for anything Pierce and his cronies wanted? Where were you when the travel controls on the Herosians and Torem were being voted in?’

Aneka turned, swinging an arm out toward the audience, and the people watching at home. ‘All of you. You all just sat there and did nothing. Oh, except for the ones who stood outside the Herosian embassy demanding the delivery of terrorists who didn’t exist. None of you even bothered to
think
about it. None of you
questioned
any of it. You were scared and you switched your brains off and went with the tide. The Herosian data network was offline. All of it. They hadn’t a clue what was going on on the next world and you believed they were running spies, and insurgents, and bio-weapons programmes across half the galaxy? You’re supposed to be more intelligent than that!’

She drew breath and Greenwald started to move. Winter fixed him with a glare which made him sit back in his chair.

‘So you’re all sitting at home,’ Aneka went on, ‘saying, “oh, she’s not talking about me because I didn’t believe it,” and if you’re not thinking that now, give it a month and you will be. You’re blaming the Administration, the FSA, the Navy, and those groups have been partially responsible. The people who were
most
responsible will be put on trial. But this is
your
fault. All of you. All it takes for evil to flourish is that good men stand by and do nothing, and you all stood by and did nothing while a few brave people who you’ve disowned, or are ready to, fought this and stopped genocide. Many of those people are in the FSA and the Navy. Senator Elroy has been trying to stop you all doing stupid things all this time and you’re ready to kick him out. Yes, I’ve seen the polls.’

She glowered at the nearest camera, the anger dissipating. ‘Fuck it. I don’t know why I’m bothering with you people. I’m going to find something useful to do, like washing my hair.’ Turning, she stormed off across the stage.

Winter rose serenely to her feet behind her. ‘I believe that concludes this interview,’ she said, and walked after Aneka.

‘Did I just fuck up?’ Aneka asked in a sour tone when Winter had caught up.

‘Of course not. You did exactly what I’d hoped you’d do. Quite eloquently, I thought.’

‘What you hoped…?’

‘We both know I don’t need a bodyguard, Aneka.’

‘So you wanted me there because they’d wind me up and I’d have a tirade at them.’

‘I’m supposed to be a diplomat.
I
can’t say things like that. Neither can Jackson. You, however, are just a civilian, and both an adopted Jenlay and an outsider.’

‘Think it worked?’

‘We shall have to see. The table buckling was a very nice attention grabber, so I think it might.’

‘Huh.’ There was a pause and then, ‘I am going to make hundreds of holographic clones of you on the firing range and use a machine gun on them.’

‘That seems fair,’ Winter allowed.

New Earth Orbital Transit Station Two, 1.4.531 FSC.

Aneka watched as Stephen Teldarian greeted his sister and Melissa. There was a lot of hugging and some of it seemed somehow wrong, inappropriate, but that was drowned out by the sadness. Melissa’s sister had been one of the victims of the experiments on Eshebbon. Their friend, as well as their servant, Butler, was dead. Their home would forever be the place which had been invaded by masked men with guns.

Teldarian had been found in a cell in the secret laboratory at the back of Corax’s port. Pierce had kept him there trying to replicate the Xinti hardware from what evidence they had managed to gather from the destroyed frigate.

Daniella and Melissa had just been brought back from Wormhole Junction. Now they would leave and try to regain some semblance of a life.

Aneka watched them, but she watched from a safe distance. Ella was off somewhere doing something administrative for her mother and Aneka had wanted to see the arrivals coming in through the wormhole and from Corax where the Beryum patients were finally being let out. The station was pretty busy, in fact, so when Aneka turned and saw the child standing near one of the walls looking around uncertainly, it was not entirely surprising.

The girl was blonde and thin, and small, maybe six or eight years old, and dressed in a short, white, rather utilitarian dress and sneakers. There was a doll hanging from her left hand, a weird looking thing somewhere between a bear and a unicorn, which Ella had said was from a popular children’s programme. Her left arm was in a metal brace, presumably recovering from a break.

Aneka walked over and crouched down beside the little girl. The girl looked back at her, not scared, or worried, just a little perplexed.

‘Hello, I’m Aneka,’ Aneka said.

‘Hello,’ the girl said, ‘I am Mizzy.’ She had a bit of an accent, and Aneka made a guess.

‘Are you lost?’ Aneka said in Rimmic.

‘No, but my Mom is,’ the girl replied. ‘She says I should speak Federal here.’

‘Well, this is easier and we won’t tell her. So, your mother’s lost?’

‘We came over from the big station, with Deena, and we were supposed to be going to New Earth, and I got separated, and she’s lost. So is Deena.’

‘Is Deena your sister?’

‘No. Deena was on Beryum and she helped me, and her mommy and daddy are gone, and Mom said that Deena should stay with us because she was like my sister now, and that’s okay because Deena got hurt when she helped me and she’s nice.’

‘I see. And what’s your Mom’s name?’

‘Donna. Donna Tuft. I’m Mizzy Tuft.’

‘Al…’ Aneka said silently.

‘I am requesting her location from the station systems now,’ Al replied.

‘Well, Mizzy Tuft, let’s go find your Mom, shall we?’ Lifting the girl up, Aneka placed her on her left shoulder and turned in the direction Al was indicating her mother could be found.

It had been an odd sort of day. It had started with Elroy declaring that civilian rule was fully re-established, and that he was promoting Captain Tor Gibbons to the rank of Admiral to head up the redevelopment of the Navy. Ape had been distinctly unhappy with the appointment, but Leeforth, resplendent with a new arm thanks to Gwy’s regeneration suite, had persuaded him that maybe it was time he settled down a bit. He had agreed, so long as she became his assistant and partner. The wedding was being planned for month seven.

Then there had been the return of the confined people to their loved ones, which was still ongoing and seemed to have resulted in Aneka carrying a child through the orbital in search of a probably distraught mother.

Donna Tuft was, indeed, distraught. She was a pleasant-looking woman, though she still showed signs of a long recovery from injury. And grief. The records Al dug up on the family indicated that Donna’s partner, Mizzy’s father, had died in the mines on Beryum. Whether that was before the bombs went off or after was unclear.

‘Mizzy!’ Donna shrieked, hurrying toward them as best she could through the moderately dense crowd of people. Aneka could tell she was stressed, if her face was not enough of an indication, because she proceeded to speak Rimmic. ‘I thought I’d lost you! Where did you go?’

‘I lost you, and Aneka found me, and she brought me back to you,’ Mizzy explained happily. She did not seem especially inclined to leave Aneka’s shoulder.

There was another girl, taller, older, with shoulder-length, black hair, standing beside Donna and looking almost more like the mother in the group. She had had to grow up very quickly recently. There was evidence of recently healed scar tissue around her face, and her right leg was in a brace like Mizzy’s arm.

‘Donna, I assume,’ Aneka said, ‘and this must be Deena.’

‘Donna Tuft, yes. Thank you for bringing her back. If I’d have lost her again…’

‘She said you were from Beryum.’

Donna nodded. ‘We’re not going back. I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to manage, but I’ll find a way to stay here… or somewhere. Oh and now we’ve missed our shuttle down…’

‘Her bio-monitor is suggesting acute stress,’ Al said, though Aneka could tell that from the tears starting in the corners of the woman’s eyes.

‘Well, I’m on the way down and I have my own ship. I don’t mind taking a few passengers.’

‘Oh! Well. Uh, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble… I’m sorry, I know Mizzy said your name, but…’

‘It’s Aneka, Aneka Jansen.’

Deena got it first. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped as she realised who Mizzy was sitting on.

Then Donna blinked as her brain kicked out the association. ‘What?
The
Aneka Jansen.’

Aneka started down the corridor again, this time for the dock where Gwy was waiting. ‘Yeah, the woman from Old Earth and all that. Don’t worry about it. I’m just like everyone else, more or less.’

‘Oh wow…’ Mizzy said in a hushed voice. ‘I’m riding on a famous person.’

Aneka laughed. ‘Thank you, Mizzy. After the year I’ve had, I needed that.’

Epilogue

Shadataga, 1.1.532 FSC.

The University of Shadataga was full of people. Term did not officially start until the seventh, but students had been arriving for the last month, in steadily growing numbers, and given the kinds of people who got a place there, stopping them trying to learn was not easy.

The night before, everyone had gathered in the square. It was not actually night, in fact it was just about midday, but it had been official night and the start of a new year. By common consent, Aneka had led the Renewal, but it had been spoken by everyone there. There were Jenlay, Old Earth Humans, Torem, and a few Herosians. The latter were just a little nervous, but no one had shown them any animosity. They were there to learn and that was the important thing.

After a heavy night, the morning had been slow to start, but it had started, and students who had achieved doctorates in their own fields were pestering the AIs like over-enthusiastic undergrads for titbits of information and nuggets of knowledge.

Aneka was not. In fact, she was enjoying a week when she had nothing to organise and no one to pester her for anything. The sun was out and, later, she planned to lie beside the pool of the new apartment block the AIs had built for staff and enjoy the heat on her skin.

It had been nine months of constant activity to reach this point. There had been a
lot
of meetings across what seemed like half the galaxy. That had been made a lot easier by the wormhole generators at the Junction, but it still meant that she had had little time to herself. This week was hers, just as soon as she dragged Ella out of the operations building by her hair.

‘Someone said five minutes,’ Aneka said as she arrived at the table in the ops room.

Ella smiled at her. ‘And it’s been… oh… thirty.’

‘My apologies, Aneka,’ Speaker put in. ‘I just wanted to show Ella the final schedules…’

‘One week,’ Aneka said. ‘Not even a Federal week, an Old Earth week. Seven days. It’s all I ask. One week to ourselves.’

‘I’m ready,’ Ella replied. ‘Holiday starts now.’

They walked out into the sunlight and Ella gave a sigh, looking around at people sitting in the plaza, talking or just lazing, but mostly talking. Over at one side, a Herosian and Torem were talking to a woman whose implant identified as being from Old Earth.

‘It’s really going to work,’ Ella said.

‘Hmm?’

‘This, it’s going to work. People are going to come together here and realise that we’re all just… people. This might just be an end to war. Like you said, understanding.’

Aneka nodded. ‘It’s possible,’ she said, because right then and there it really did seem possible that everyone could live in harmony. But somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that there was always someone out there who did not understand. Somewhere, someone would be doing something which would threaten the peace.

But right now, right here, in the University of Shadataga, everything was just right.

###

About the Author

I was born in the vicinity of Hadrian's Wall so perhaps a bit of history rubbed off. Ancient history obviously, and border history, right on the edge of the Empire. I always preferred the Dark Ages anyway; there’s so much more room for imagination when people aren’t writing down every last detail. So my idea of a good fantasy novel involved dirt and leather, not shining plate armour and Hollywood-medieval manners. The same applies to my sci-fi, really; I prefer gritty over shiny.

Oddly, then, one of the first fantasy novels I remember reading was The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper (later made into a terrible juvenile movie). These days we would call Cooper’s series Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy and looking back on it, it influenced me a lot. It has that mix of modern day life, hidden history, and magic which failed to hit popular culture until the early days of Buffy and Anne Rice. Of course, Cooper’s characters spend their time around places I could actually visit in Cornwall, and South East England, and mid-Wales. In fact, when I went to university in Aberystwyth, it was partially because some of Cooper’s books were set a few miles to the north around Tywyn.

I got into writing through roleplaying, however, so my early work was related to the kind of roleplaying game I was interested in. I wrote science fiction when I was playing
Traveller.
I wrote “high fantasy” when I was playing
Dungeons & Dragons
. I wrote a lot of superhero fiction when I was playing
City of Heroes
. I still love the idea of a modern world with magic in it and I’ve been trying to write a novel based on this for a long time. As with any form of expression, practice is the key and I can look back on all the aborted attempts at books, and the more successful short stories, as steps along the path to the Thaumatology Series.

Writing, sadly, is not my main source of income. By day, I’m a computer programmer. I work for a telecommunications company in Manchester, England. My favourite authors are Terry Pratchett, Susan Cooper, and (recently) Kim Harrison. Kim’s Hollows books were what finally spurred me to publish something, even if the trail to here came by way of Susan, back in school, several decades ago.