Contact Imminent (23 page)

“We need to talk first,” Jani said in Sìah Haárin. “I spoke with ná Feyó earlier this morning.”

“I know you did.” Gisa answered in English, her eye on Niall, who wandered along the shelves. “You must know then, and truly, that her time is past, and that we who are blended must take charge of Haárin and show them the Way to a new Star.” She sat back, her hands folded in her lap, maddening in her calm. “You understand such, this I know. What life have you with humanish now, Kièrshia? They do not think as you do. They do not feel as you do. Their concerns are not yours, for if they were you would not be here. But what life have you with Haárin, who would not even allow you inside their godly houses? Hah!” She raised a hand, gesturing about the library. “This is your place now, among your own. Sit here with me, and take it.”

Witch
. One who persuaded with feeling, as Feyó did with facts. “During my visit to ná Feyó, she received a message from Rauta Shèràa Temple. Tsecha had denied Sànalàn's authority as Chief Propitiator. Temple decreed that he be called back into the worldskein.”

“Hah!”
Gisa clasped her hands over her head and shook them. “He is hybrid in all ways but the body!”

“This is not good news.” Jani dragged out a chair and sat so she could lean closer to Gisa and lower her voice. Niall might not have been able to understand her words, but he'd be able to understand the music quite well. “Your announcement as to your fitness to take the Elyan Haárin from Feyó has confused the other Outer Circle Haárin. You have said you are Tsecha's choice, but I am here to tell you once and for all that Tsecha supports Feyó—”

“If he knew of this place, if he saw—”

“He would still realize that Feyó is the better choice to lead the Outer Circle Haárin through this crisis, even though he created it himself.” Jani rested her hands on the table, spreading her red-trimmed cuffs in the process. “You must back down. You have not the experience to head both hybrid and Haárin. You have put Feyó in the position where she must fight for her survival at a time when the Outer Circle Haárin must project a united front. If Cèel sees you are as one, he may stay his hand regarding Tsecha.”

Gisa struck the table with her fist. “We must have a place!”

“This is not the way. This is not the time!”

Gisa wavered. Uncertainty curved her hands further, and softened the hardness of her face. “Then we are as nothing here.”

Jani looked into grey eyes gone cold. “That will change. But not this way, and not at this time.” She waited for some sign of Gisa's agreement. When none proved forthcoming, she bit back further argument—she had some idea how the female reacted to being cornered, and she didn't want to risk applying too much pressure. “We will speak more of this later.”

She pushed back her chair and stood, then turned to find Niall regarding her narrow-eyed over the top of a freestanding display case. Ignoring him, she headed for the door, boots clipping on the glassy floor. She opened the door and
stepped out into the walkway, heard the panel slide closed behind her.

Then she heard it open again, followed hard by the crunch of tietops on the tiled walkway.

“I didn't understand a damned word you said back there.” Niall quickened his step and fell in beside her. “I did hear Tsecha's name a few times. What trouble is that old bird in now?”

Jani stopped, turning into Niall and halting him with a bump of her shoulder. “If you really want to know, I'll tell you. Communications Ministry techs are bound to plumb it out of the spaceways soon anyway.” She waited for his slow nod. “He denounced Sànalàn. The Rauta Shèràa Temple has ordered him back to Shèrá to face disciplinary action. The translation Feyó and I both took from that is that they'll kill him.” She waited for him to close his mouth. “We might stand a chance of saving him if a union of Outer Circle Haárin demand he be spared—Cèel's power base is shaky and he needs Haárin support to keep his Oligarchy. But ná Gisa has challenged ná Feyó for the dominance of the Outer Circle Haárin, and if they're hung up with this little episode, they'll be too splintered to compel Cèel to spare Tsecha.” She locked her hands behind her back and bent forward at the waist like an instructor teaching a class. “Is that clear?”

“As mud.” Niall paced a tight circle, then turned to face her. “I know how you feel about him—”

“Thank you.”

“—but how does this affect the Commonwealth? That's my concern. What does an Haárin union that's powerful enough to push around a bornsect Oligarch mean to Chicago?” Niall's beautiful eyes hardened, became one at last with his predator's face. “You see my dilemma? I watched you out there, spouting off like a Drill, ordering everyone around, terrifying them yet drawing them in at the same time. They follow every move you make, as if you were a knife blade catching the sun.” He looked off into the middle distance. “Charisma, yes. Mystique. Legend. And as
I watch this…history unfold before me, I constantly need to remind myself that I'm on the other side. There was a time that I'd have followed you into the maw of hell, Jan, but I can't anymore.”

Jani nodded. “I know. I'm not asking you to.”

“But you're asking me to stand aside and watch, and I can't do that, either.” A shadow found Niall's scar, deepening it to a cruel gash. “I need to inform my superiors of a brewing issue with the Haárin. They'll inform Cabinet Row, who will have to decide what outcome best suits them and push accordingly, and you know as well as I do that a weakened Cèel isn't the worst news for the Commonwealth.” He waited for Jani to respond, but had the sense to drop the point when she didn't. “I have to take that skimmer back to the Board. Then I need to check in at Fort Karistos.” He stepped around her and headed toward the stairs. “They still want to talk to you.”

Jani folded her arms, hunched her shoulders. Idomeni anger, combined with an ache like a punch in the pit of her stomach. “They can go to hell.”

“Is that your answer as a Commonwealth citizen?” Niall looked back at her. Raised a pleading hand to her, then let it fall. “Glories of the morning to you, ná Kièrshia. I believe that's the proper phrase.” His step sounded once more. “The proper name.”

He took the stairs two at a time. Jani looked over the railing and watched him stride across the courtyard to the door, back straight and head held high, like the soldier he was.

Jani wandered the lower level of the house for the first time. It did feel cooler than the upper levels, the white walls and high ceilings allowing a sense of space and light that she had never associated with a basement. Maybe it was the lack of windows that caused her closed-in feeling, the knowledge that the fresh, hot wind never blew through this place. Or maybe it was the memory of Niall walking across the courtyard, on his way to perform his soldier's duty in the way that he saw fit.

She grew conscious of the faces eventually, watching her from the examining room doorways, from around corners, like mice waiting for the feral dog to pass so they could go about their business. She turned to a female who stood in the entry to a laboratory, a hybridized Haárin outfitted in the same medwhite shirt and trousers that had been John's uniform for years, and tried baring her teeth in the interest of good will. When the female backed off a step, however, she realized that at this particular moment, simple questions were probably the better course to take. “Is John Shroud still down here? He came to speak with Eamon DeVries.”

“Yes. Ná Kièrshia.” The female first pointed down the hall, then stepped out of the room. “The directions…too complicated, and truly.” She led Jani down one corridor,
then another, glancing back at her every few steps as though afraid she might pounce.

Damn it, I'm not a brute
. Jani took her shooter from her waistband and tucked it into her duffel to reinforce the opinion, then tried to straighten her back and uncurve her shoulders—the posture of anger came so easily now that she wasn't even aware when it took hold. They came to a stop in front of a plain white door identical to all the others. Only a small plate set off to the side, etched in both humanish and Sìah numbers, marked its identity.

“Thank you.” Jani nodded to the female, who bolted as if freed from a prison.
I have got to work on my social skills
. She waited until the corridor was free of traffic, then knocked. “John? It's Jani.”

Silence followed for a long beat. Then came the click of a lock being disengaged, the hollow slide of a mechanism. The panel slid open, revealing John, his face set, his suit jacket and sunshades discarded, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled to the elbow. A softening came to his eyes when he looked at her, but he didn't smile. “I wondered when you'd show.”

He stood aside, opening Jani's view to the rest of the room. It was an office, air chilled by a space cooler, redolent with the goaty odor of male shut-in and an undercurrent of prepack meals past. A desk filled the middle of the room, surrounded by shelves, file bins, and a worktable set with two workstations. Holos hung from every spare centimeter of wall space—Eamon DeVries with ministers past and present, actors and actresses, sports stars.

The man himself sat on a couch set against the far wall, beshirted and trousered but barefoot still, surrounded by the pillows and rumpled blankets that marked the furniture as his bed. The arrogance that he carried at the station and the bizarre cocktail party had given way to sullenness, his slack face and bagged eyes reflecting the days spent operating on nerve, liquor, and too little sleep.

“Well well.” Eamon looked at her, then lay back his head and frowned at the ceiling. “If it isn't the second team.”

Jani entered, waiting for John to close the door and find his seat before deciding where to perch. “I doubt I have anything to say to you that John hasn't already covered, and better than I could.” She tested the strength of a waist-high bookcase, set her duffel on top, then hoisted aboard, legs dangling.

“He did tell me that you asked him why he did it.” John sat at Eamon's desk. “We've spent the last few hours discussing those reasons in greater detail.”

“As if they weren't good enough.” Eamon jerked his chin toward Jani. “As if they weren't better than the ones you used with
that
. At least Gisa and her crew came to me. At least I had permission!” He yanked his blanket onto his lap and started matching edges and corners. “You're a bloody hypocrite, John—you always have been. Free to do as you will, but God forbid anyone else should presume.” He started to fold the mass of cloth, but it overwhelmed him, and he tossed it to the floor in a hail of cursing. “And as for your bloody contract, a decent attorney could hack it to bits. Assuming, of course, that you're looking forward to having Neoclona's laundry basket dumped in full view of the Commonwealth population.” He worked to his feet, then knelt on the floor. “Think of all that bad publicity. Just might be the boost that Service Medical and some of those new independent med services are looking for—twenty years of John Joseph Shroud's chicanery, laid open for the public to paw over.” He lay flat on his stomach and reached beneath the couch, grunting and muttering imprecations before finally emerging, shoes in hand.

“The problem with taking on Neoclona, Eamon, is that your worth is as tied up in its perceived value as is mine and Val's.” John exuded calm edging into boredom. “You could indeed rake us over the public coalpit, but in the end you might find yourself stuck with a portfolio of battered valua
tions and attorneys' fees based on what you were worth before you opened your mouth.” He locked his hands behind his head and hoisted his feet atop the desk. “Then there's the Commonwealth to deal with. I made one”—he cocked his head toward Jani—“you made fifty-seven. The former's a curiosity. The latter's a complication in every future human-idomeni negotiation, and don't think that won't be noted and appreciated by Li Cao and all the highly placed others who will have to grapple with the fallout for years to come.”

Eamon remained kneeling, shoes dangling in his grip, eyes fixed on John with a hatred intensified by the smell and clutter and the wall-hung testimony to a life gone by. “You won't win this one, John. You and your deep pockets and your conceit and your Halloween suit.” He struggled back atop the couch, then tossed his shoes to the floor and shoved his bare feet inside. “I put as much into this company as you and Val. More, come to that, so don't suppose for a minute that I'll go quietly with a pittance and a scolding as my payment.” He tottered to his feet with an unsteadiness that spoke of a hangover as well as overwhelming rage. “I won't be set aside twice.” He walked to the door, slowly at first, then faster as he found his balance. “I have rounds now.” He grabbed a medcoat from a wall hook next to the door. “Then I'll have my work to do, and I'd prefer it if you were both
out
by the time I return.” He pounded the doorframe with his fist until the panel slid aside, then forced through the gap and into the hall.

“That didn't go well.” John cocked his head as though listening to the fading pound of Eamon's footsteps, the closing of the door. “I didn't mean to refer to you as a curiosity. Such is the language of negotiation.” He lowered his feet to the floor and sat forward, picking through the piles on Eamon's desk like a technician isolating a particularly vile sample. “He'll push. I'll push. In the end we'll work something out, but it won't be pretty. No image for posterity. No handshakes all around.” He liberated a wafer folder from the
middle of a stack of files, glanced at the cover, then tucked it back in its place, his face reddening. “I see Eamon's taste in entertainment hasn't changed.” He leaned on his elbows and cradled his chin in one hand. “And how was your morning?”

“Even better than yours.” Jani filled John in on the news from Shèrá, Gisa's and Niall's reactions. “I've asked Feyó to contact the other Outer Circle dominants and rally support. My job was to try to convince Gisa to see sense. I'm giving her time to think before going back for round two.”

“For all you know, Tsecha might already be on his way to Shèrá.” John poked through the stacks again, freeing a cookie packet and digging out a broken half. “We do it all the time at Neoclona—fix the problem, then announce that we had one.” He popped the piece into his mouth and chewed reflectively. “Getting in touch with the home team is, I believe, the order of the day.”

Jani drew up her legs and crossed them. The ache in her gut had subsided to a grumble, and she debated asking John if there was any more food to be unearthed from the depths of Eamon's desk. “I don't trust the communications here. There's the Elyan enclave, but I'm not sure that the embassy doesn't tap into enclave-to-enclave communications when it suits them, and they'd be interested in this. Service is the most secure of all, and they are most definitely out.”

“There's always Neoclona.” John concentrated on smoothing the creases from the cookie packet. “Due to the sensitive nature of some of our data, we've systems in place that would give Niall pause.”

Jani thought back to Niall's chill expression, his voice wrung dry of any attempt to argue because he had finally realized it would do neither of them any good.
I'm on the other side
. A malleable phrase, adjustable to fit both of them. “We're edging into a delicate area. The messages Val would be receiving would contain intelligence that could be considered important to the Commonwealth for both strategic and security reasons. It would concern Outer Circle dock
ownership. Holding companies. Copies of communications with Rauta Shèràa Temple and Council.” She looked across the room at John, met his steady, too-dark eye. “You realize what I'm asking?”

“Yes.”

“Someone with a broad definition of treason might even think it applies to you.”

“Let me worry about that.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Be that as it may.” John clasped his hands together, then tapped his chin with his doubled fist. “Who would act on the receiving end?”

“Lucien.”

“Are you sure?”

“He won't play fast and loose with this. He'd realize that if I found out, the Commonwealth wouldn't be big enough for him to hide in.” Jani pulled her overrobe around her in an effort to fight the cold. “I'd like to keep Val out of it.”

“I can tell him to have Lucien there at a particular time. The message never has to pass through his hands. I can tell him that they're classified Service communications, word it in such a way that he knows to keep his hands off.” He grinned without a trace of humor. “We're being so careful. It's as though we're already preparing the story for the lawyers.” He stood and gathered his jacket from the back of Eamon's chair. “Where do we start?”

“I need to dig my report-writing skills out of my duffel and put together a preliminary something.” Jani pushed off the bookcase, then dragged her bag onto her shoulder. “Wait for Feyó's update. Bug her for it, if I can get a message to her.”

“I can do that before I go to Neoclona.” John rolled down his sleeves, then dragged on his jacket.

“Then I get to work on Gisa again.” The duffel slid from Jani's shoulder. She caught it just before it hit the floor. “I never thought this trip would turn out like this. I'm sorry.” A weight pressed down on her from above, bowing her back.
Her heart pounded. Panic and anger, unabated by an augie that couldn't stop it anymore. “Damn it!” She raised her duffel over her head and slammed it down on the worktable, scattering data wafers and documents, sending an old coffee dispo skittering across the floor.
“Damn it!”
She raised it once more and brought it down. Again. Again.

“Jani?” John rounded the desk and closed in. “Stop it.
Stop it
.” He wrestled the bag from her hand and let it fall to the floor, then grabbed her wrists and struggled to force her still. “Stop this. I said,
stop it!
”

Jani battled the instinct to strike. John stood too close, his stance too open. So many ways to hit him. So many ways to bring him down—

Her mind's eye filled with the visions that poured from her memory, of battles fought and battles feared, past and future joined. She slowed, then stilled, as the humanish that remained in her fought the idomeni and slowly gained the upper hand, at least for now. Who'd have thought she'd find such mercy there? She sagged against John, shaking free from his grasp as she pressed her face against his chest, felt his heart beat through his thin shirt. Wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him closer and felt it beat stronger still. Faster.

He touched her hair first, a tentative fingering, as though he'd never seen such stuff as that before. Then his hands moved down, over the back of her head, coming to rest on her shoulders.

Jani waited. She could sense his thoughts as though he spoke aloud, knew he wanted to push her away yet couldn't summon the will to do so.

“You're not yourself.” His bass rumbled as though it came up through the floor.
The voice of the machine
, Eamon had once called it.

Not a machine
. Oh, didn't she know. She raised her head and looked into eyes filmed to intimidate, set in a face blanked by the determination not to care. “Every day, I change a little more. That means that at this moment I'm as
close to myself as I will ever be again.” With that, she reached up and worked her hands through white hair like shredded silk and pulled him down. His lips hovered near hers, the barest breath apart, allowing them both one last chance to end it. Then they met, closing a gap of millimeters, of twenty years' worth of other lives and other lovers and the ever-present knowledge that all they'd done was mark the time.

Jani savored taste and sense and scent long-lost and long-imagined. Touched a scar on the back of John's neck, the result of shatterbox shrapnel from the first wave of Rauta Shèràa bombings. Ran a hand under the neck of his shirt and over his shoulder, and felt the bump on his collarbone from a youthful fall from a tree.
I know his body better than mine.
She felt her heat rise, overwhelming the chill of the room. She held John closer, ground against him and heard the groan rise in his throat, then felt him pull back.