Law of Survival (21 page)

Shai stopped in midstride. “You are not…?”

“No, I am not
ill,
Shai.” Tsecha stressed the word for sickness because he knew Shai disliked such things discussed openly. “I am only tired.”

Shai swept her right hand across her face as though she brushed away one of Jani's wasps, a gesture of profound displeasure. “I did not send your own suborn to trap you.”

“Do you think me stupid, Shai—of course you did.”

“Do you call me a liar?”

“Does that shock you? I have called you worse.” Tsecha maneuvered a cushion so that it padded a particularly sharp metal prong. “Have you learned anything of my Jani?”

Shai hesitated. “You will be most happy to hear that she is apparently most well. She roams the city. Lt. Pascal remains in the Neoclona facility. He is to leave soon, I understand. His injuries were not insignificant, but humanish augmentation precipitates rapid healing.” She gestured in confusion. “How openly they speak of their illnesses. It stuns me continuously.”

Tsecha sat so his left leg stuck straight out. A bizarre posture, complicated by the unfamiliar irritations of Shai's furniture. “It is wise to get past an enemy's ability to stun before imitating them in everything they do.” He lapsed into Low Vynshàrau as well—the roughened language complimented his physical discomfort. “One of our soldiers would have explained such to you if you had asked.”

“You are arrogant, Tsecha.”

“I am arrogance itself, Shai. So I have been told many times.” Tsecha felt the pain ease in his hip, a muscle cramp only. “When will the challenge be allowed to take place?”

“There will be no challenge.” Shai walked again, this time to the far end of the long room and back. She had arranged all her furniture against the walls so nothing impeded her loping stride. “I will return you to Shèrá before I allow such.”

“But you plan to do such anyway, Shai.” Tsecha bared his teeth. “This is the excuse for which you have searched! Most excellent, Shai, and worthy of the most deceitful humanish.”

“This challenge would devastate us. It will not be allowed to take place.”

“As I am the challenged, it is for me to relinquish the right, and such I will never do.”

“I will tell Cèel of this.”

“Yes, Shai, you will tell. Such is your way.” Tsecha rose and walked to the door, holding onto the heavy wood of the entry before pushing himself away and into the hall.

The news of Sànalàn's challenge had already traveled into every corner of the embassy with the air and the light. The
greetings Tsecha received were delivered with gestures of perplexity and question, surprise and anger. He looked forward with thankfulness to the solitude of his rooms. Now, the prospect of turning pages held the promise of rest, which he needed most surely.

His step quickened as he approached his door. He did not notice the shadow across the hallway until it stepped forward into his path.

“You will walk with me, nìRau.” Dathim wore the drab colors of a crafts worker, a dark green cloth wrapped around his shorn head. He spoke in statement, not in question, as though the possibility of refusal did not exist.

Tsecha again pressed a hand to his hip. The ache had returned, dull but persistent. Idomeni philosophers made much of the mind-focusing abilities of pain, but he had lost patience with such, and truly.
I must sleep.
And take sacrament—it had been seasons since he recalled a true longing in his soul for such.

Then he caught sight of the weighty sling pouch hanging from Dathim's shoulder, of the sort used by craftsworkers to carry their tools. “Yes, ní Dathim.” He took a step forward and suppressed a groan as pain shot down his leg. “I will walk with you.”

 

“The Exterior Ministry is a most strange place.” Dathim's stride covered ground as rapidly as a skimmer. His speech came too quickly for his gestures to keep up—his posture altered so quickly he appeared in spasm. “Storage rooms next door to work rooms instead of in separate wings. Humanish sitting at work tables out in the open, in the middle of hallways!”

“They are called
receptionists
, ní Dathim.” Tsecha struggled to match the Haárin's stride, but finally surrendered to pain and fatigue. “Or sometimes, they are just called
desks,
like the furniture at which they sit.” He limped to the first bench he saw, and sank gratefully onto the sun-warmed surface. The radiant heat warmed him through his robes, a gift from the gods, and truly.

“Remarkable!” Dathim circled the bench, head down, like
a youngish inscribing a games boundary. “NìaRauta Atar advised me to seek you out, nìRau Tsecha, for absolution. Such were the things we saw that she felt it necessary.” He stopped in place and glanced at Tsecha. “This is why we speak here, nìRau. Because I seek absolution.”

“Wise, ní Dathim.”

“In case we are asked why we speak so frequently. It is because my soul is troubled by so much contact with humanish.”

“I understand, ní Dathim.”

Dathim turned full-face. His gold eyes altered to molten yellow in the bright sunlight. “You are not well, nìRau.” Again, he spoke in statement, not in question.

“I am tired, ní Dathim.” Tsecha shivered as a lake breeze brushed him. “I have not slept since we spoke amid the trees.”

“I slept most well.” Dathim sat, legs splayed in the sprawl of a humanish male. “It is wise to do so at times such as these.” He lowered the sling pouch to the tiles at his feet and freed the closures. “Humanish are strange.”

“Reading of and hearing of does not prepare one for the reality, ní Dathim.” Tsecha paused to untangle one of his side braids, which a gust of breeze caused to entangle in an earring. “At times, the disorder is enlivening. Other times, it is most vexing, and tru—” His words expired to nothing as Dathim opened the sling pouch, and he saw what lay inside.

“They have no idea, nìRau.” Dathim reached into the pouch and lifted out a documents slipcase. Beneath it lay more slipcases, folders, and wafer envelopes. “None.”

“Dathim.”
Tsecha leaned forward and ran a finger over the slipcase.

“They meet us outside, the humanish. Minister Ulanova is one of them. She laughs too loudly. Her hands flutter as a youngish. I do not like her.” Dathim sat back, hands in tense rest atop his thighs, yellow eyes watching the water. “They lead us inside. Me. NìaRauta Atar, who does not belong but she is my facilities dominant, so I cannot argue. Ní Fa, who is suborn to me. The young pale-haired one, who looks as the lieutenant who was shot—?”

Tsecha visualized an angry red face. “Lescaux.”

Dathim nodded. “Lescaux. He takes over. He precedes us, which is odd, considering his station. He should walk behind, and let one of his suborns lead, but such are humanish.” He nudged the sling pouch with his booted toe, so that the gaping opening closed. “He is despised.”

“Despised?”

“Beddy-Boy, they call him when he cannot hear.” Dathim raised a hand and let it drop, a gesture that meant nothing. “Ulanova has elevated him. She touches him when she thinks they are alone, the way humanish do. Why do the others laugh?”

Tsecha flicked his right hand in puzzlement. “Humanish make mockery of such, I have learned. The difference in age and station bothers them. It makes no sense. Such elevations are most seemly. Most orderly.”

“Maybe humanish get it wrong. Like Lescaux leading us. I have noticed that humanish often get it wrong.” Dathim sat in silence, his gaze still on the water. “They show us the lobby first. It is an open space with many windows. Most appropriate for a wall mural or a floor work. Not
both
. NìaRauta Ulanova wants
both.
” He reached up and tugged the cloth from his head, exposing his sheared scalp. “A smaller space, I tell them. Otherwise, it is too much. So they take me upstairs, to the conference room.”

Tsecha grew aware that he held his breath, and forced himself to inhale.

“The room they show me is in the same wing with the dominants' rooms. The
offices
. I watch the humanish walk from one to the other as if what belongs to one belongs to all. No hand readers. No ear scans. They label the doors with the names of the residents. It is as walking into my workroom and taking a tool from its hook!” Dathim's breathing rasped, as though he ran. “They take me to the conference room. It is beside Ulanova's office, connected by an inner door.”

Tsecha closed his eyes.

“They take me inside the conference room. It is large, with a window. I say I can tile the wall opposite the window. Ulanova says she wants the floor, as well. I say, too much.
She says, what of the short wall? Perpendicular to the wall I will tile. Opposite the wall with the inner door.” Dathim's breathing slowed. “I needed to sight. Several times. I say I need room to do such. Lescaux opens the inner door. I sight. Several times. The first time, I walk by Ulanova's desk. I look at what is there. I cannot tell what concerns your Kilian. The second time, I take a file from the middle of a stack, and put it in my pouch. The third time, another file from the top of a stack. Four, five, six times I sight. Each time, I take a file from a different place, except for the last time, when I take the wafers from a holder beside Ulanova's comport.”

“But you do not know what you took?”

“It is on a dominant's work table. It must therefore be important.”

“Yes.” Tsecha opened his eyes, then squinted as the glare of the sun off a lakeswell pained him. “Ní Dathim?”

“Yes, nìRau?” Dathim sat forward in another humanish posture, elbows on knees, legs still open, hands hanging inward.

“When humanish steal, they follow certain protocols. Either they ensure that the thing they take will not be missed, or not be missed until they are well away.” Hansen's rules played through Tsecha's memory, in his Tongue's mellow, musical voice. “It is best that the thief not be around to be linked to the thievery. Nìa Ulanova will realize quite soon that these files you have taken are no longer in her office. It may not take her long to determine that you took them, and you and I will still be here in this damned cold place when she does so.”

Dathim held up his hands, then let them drop, yet another variation on the ubiquitous humanish shrug. “They would not think a Vynshàrau could do such things, nìRau.”

“You are Vynshàrau
Haárin
, ní Dathim.”

“How well do the humanish know the difference, nìRau?”

“They will soon learn.” Tsecha rose slowly and trod the short path that led from the bench to a stand of shrubs. His hip no longer ached, but his head pounded.

“I did as you asked, nìRau.” Dathim's voice pitched low in anger.

“I asked you to look for documents about my Jani.”

“I did not have time to read, nìRau, only to take!”

“Yes, and now you must get rid of that which you took quite soon, and truly.”

“How?”

“If I admit I have them…the humanish call such an
incident,
ní Dathim. Humanish do not like incidents.” Tsecha turned and walked back to the bench, kicking at the pouch with his booted foot as he passed it.

“An incident?” Dathim's voice held a tension beyond anger. “As your suborn challenging you—that is an incident, also?”

“So, you have been listening to conversations in hallways again. Yes, ní Dathim, that is also an incident. I am quite good at them, and truly.” Tsecha kicked at the pouch again. “I can think of only one way to get rid of these.”

Dathim passed a hand over his clipped head. “Tell me, nìRau.”

Tsecha told him.

Jani returned to her flat to find a great deal less open space than when she left.

“Now this is more like it.” Steve sprawled across one end of the room's new centerpiece, a large couch upholstered in ivory polycanvas. “And there's a table in the dining room now. With chairs yet. One can actually sit and eat and not have to chow over the kitchen sink—
that's
a concept I can live with.”

“You've gone soft in your old age is your problem.” Jani sat at the opposite end of the couch, picking through the leafy innards of her Neoclona vegetable sandwich as she surveyed her new furnishings. A pair of off-white chairs now sat in the far corner. Adding to the new decor were a few strategically placed birch tables, brushed steel floor lamps, and a huge oval rug in shades of sapphire, cream, and tan.

Jani popped the last bite of lunch into her mouth, then thumped the cushion on which she sat—it was thick and firm and buffered her back marvelously. “I'm going to miss that wide-open feel.”

“Blow yer wide-open feel. Every time I talked, I heard an echo.” Steve stuck an unignited 'stick in his mouth, and chewed reflectively. “So, what'd ya do at Sheridan?”

Jani plucked at the cushion edge. “Visited Frances Hals. I figured she'd heard about the shooting, and I knew she'd worry until I checked in.”

“Could have called her. Saved a trip.”

“Some things should be handled in person.”

“Jan the Goodwill Ambassador. Will wonders never
cease?” Steve lay back his head and stared at the ceiling. “I figured you'd have stopped by Intelligence, asked a few questions about Blondie. Found out whether that embassy thing he came to take you to were a load or not.”

It was.
Jani reached into her jacket pocket and felt for the casino marker.

“Did ya hear me, Jan?”

“I heard you.” She slipped out the plastic disc and examined it under the light of one of her new lamps. It was a hard, bright green, like a cheap gemstone. Three centimeters in diameter, smooth surfaces trimmed with a ridged rim.

“Gone gamblin', did ya?” Steve's brows arched. “Must've felt lucky—greens run five to ten thousand Comdollars, depending on the casino.”

Jani held the marker directly up to the light source, squinting as she tried to see through it. “These things come loaded.”

“With what? A chip?” Steve scooted down the couch, his clothes hissing against the polycanvas. “Might, since it's a big denomination. Casino might register them.”

“They do.” Jani lifted her duffel onto her lap. “Plastic this thick can be hard to scan.”

“I can scan plastic. I used to have to log in equipment in Helier, so I had my 'pack source boosted.” Angevin rounded the couch and sat on the floor at Jani's feet—she held a juice dispo in one hand and her scanpack in the other. “So how do you like my decorating?”

“Nice.” Jani handed her the casino marker.

“She misses the wide-open feel,” Steve added helpfully.

“Blow.” Angevin worked through her 'pack start-up checks, then held out her hand for the marker. She passed her scanpack reading surface over one side, then the other. Once. Twice. Again. “It's colony. Beyond that, I can't tell anything.”

“Too thick?” Jani took the marker from her and again held it under the lamplight.

“I don't think so.” Angevin glowered at the disc with the suspicious eye of a thwarted dexxie. “Could be the dye in the plastic. Some of them emit at wavelengths that interfere with scanmechs. I'd need a sheath that filters at just the right hairline of the spectrum in order to read further.”

“Could be sending blocking signals, too.” Steve reached for the marker, but Jani batted his hand away.

“Blocking dyes and signals are controlled out of Registry.” She held the marker by the edges and tried to flex it. “Legal casinos can't use them and the illegal ones don't bother. The only problem with this thing is it's too thick.” She felt it bend, very slightly, and eased off. “It's a marker—they're never meant to leave the casino.” She held it up to the light again to see if she could spot the whitened stress cracks. “Bets are tracked by other means. All this should contain is the name of the casino and the pit registry code.” She gripped the edges again and flicked her wrists down. The marker snapped like an overbaked cookie.

“What the hell ya do that for!” Steve pulled the nicstick out of his mouth—it had suddenly developed a distinct bend in the mouthpiece. “You just—
gah
!” His hand flew to his mouth. He ran into the kitchen.

“Bit right through to the scent core.” Angevin watched her lover's flight with a distinct lack of anxiety. “With his temper, he does that about once a week. Stings like hell for a few seconds, then his tongue goes numb. You'd think that would teach him not to smoke those damned clove things, but he's got a memory like a stalk of celery.”

Jani dug tweezers out of her tool kit and probed one of the marker's newly exposed inside edges. “You don't seem concerned.”

“Shuts him up for hours. Sometimes I appreciate the peace and quiet.” Angevin grinned and hunched her shoulders as though she'd said something naughty. “But sometimes I ask him questions that he can't answer with a yes or no, just to see that Guernsey glower.” She moved into a kneeling position and studied the marker half that Jani examined. “I hope you didn't screw up the chip.”

Jani used the sharp points of the tweezers to work a groove into the broken edge. “In a casino, you pay for everything with markers. Officially, purchases and bets are tracked with handprints, but as part of the tradition, you go through the motions of paying with markers. They're made breakable so you can get change back. Because of that, the chips are offset in one of the quadrants, well away from the
break-axes.” She eased up on the pressure as she poked into a miniscule open space. “Get that antistat out of my bag.”

Angevin pulled out the square of charge-dissipating black cloth that sat atop the muddle and spread it across Jani's knee. “Those chips don't self-destruct like doc insets, I gather?”

“No.” Jani removed the chip from its home and placed it on the cloth. “They can, in fact, be reused. Like I said, all they contain is the casino and the reg number.” She pulled her scanpack from her bag and activated it.

“Why do you need to know where it comes from?” Angevin managed an expression of disinterest, but her hands betrayed her, fingers curled and clenching.

“Just a data point.” Jani held her scanpack over the chip, and watched the information scroll across her display. “Andalusia. That's a high-end club in Felix Majora, Felix's largest city.”

“You're speaking from experience?” Angevin tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth twitched.

“I made a few business calls. Peeked through the trade entrance a couple of times.” Jani recalled the black and yellow uniformed waitstaff, the vast expanses of spotless stainless steel in the kitchen. Andalusia was the sort of place that ran a credit check before letting a customer in the door. “Steve would call it posh and full of nobbies.”

“He wouldn't call it much of anything at the moment.” Angevin uncurled to her feet and gazed down at Jani. Her skin was clear cream, untouched by worry and a stress-shortened night spent in a bedroll in a strange flat. Only her eyes, mossy green and large, held the dull light of concern. “You're not going to tell us why you think this marker is important, are you?”

“It's just my curiosity.” Jani tucked the chip back into its slotted home, then enfolded the two marker halves in the antistat and tucked the bundle into her duffel.

“You're a real good liar,” Angevin snapped. “You're as good as Evan van Reuter. Around Interior Doc Control, we used to say that he could sell a potluck dinner to the idomeni.”

Jani's head shot up.
“Don't ever compare me with him.”

Angevin took a step backward. “I'm—I'm sorry, I—”

“Just
don't
.”

“All right.”
Angevin glanced over Jani's head, and did a game job of wiping the upset from her face. “How are you feeling, darling?”

“Mmph.” Steve circled around the couch and flopped back in his old seat. The skin around his mouth was reddened from scrubbing, the front of his pullover splattered with water.

“Well, I should get going.” Jani stood and hoisted her duffel to her shoulder.

“But you just got here!” Angevin threw her hands in the air. “You haven't even seen the rest of the flat!”

Jani made a show of checking her timepiece. “I need to get to Neoclona. Val told me I could visit Lucien this afternoon.”

“Nrrm.” Steve got up just as Jani walked past him, bumping into her in the process.

Jani felt his hand slip in her jacket pocket. She maintained her path to the door without breaking stride, and exited into the hallway two steps ahead of Angevin.

“We need to go through your paper mail,” Angevin called after her, “and you've got fifteen comport messages and you're going to miss a deadline on—”

Jani stopped short and turned around. “Angevin, someone shot at me last night. Now whether they meant to hit Lucien, or me, I don't know and I don't care. Pulse packets discharged in my vicinity make me edgy, and I mean to find out who fired that particular one and why.”

Angevin planted in the middle of the hall. “I have spent half the morning taking calls from people asking where you are, and what happened last night, and are you under suspicion of anything. One son of a bitch had the nerve to ask if your past had caught up with you.”

“Devinham, probably. His report is sitting atop the far right-hand stack. Call NUVA-SCAN Courier and tell them to come pick it up.” Jani walked back to Angevin and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I'm caught up on my most pressing projects. I need to do some work tonight, which I will. And if any clients bail on me because they're afraid my grubby little past will rub off on them, I will deal with it.” She
walked backward toward the lift. “Right now, though, I'm going to visit someone who had half the skin of his lower abdomen seared off, and who feels like a elephant stepped on his lower back. OK?”

Angevin cringed at the description of Lucien's injuries. “Tell him I said hello.”

“I will.”

“Steve doesn't like him a bit.”

“I am aware of that.”

“I'll do what I can with the rest of your calendar.”

“Thank you. I mean that.” Jani stepped aboard the lift; just as the door closed, she caught a glimpse of Steve in the entry, hands buried in his pockets, angry stare focused on her.

Jani reached into her pocket and removed what Steve had stuffed there. It proved to be a folded piece of dispo towel. She opened it and read the hurried printing, made blurred by the way the stylus fluid bled through the cottony material.

Jani touched her left shoulder, still bruised and tender from Lucien's grip. It seemed to be taking a longer than normal time to heal. As though the damage was worse than she thought. As though it believed she needed a reminder.

 

The main branch of the Capital Library loomed over its neighbor buildings like an overbearing professor, its stern stone and metal lines and forbidding entry inviting the information seeker while promising them a difficult search. Jani didn't know whether the stacks really were as daunting as their shelter made them appear—she had acquired a membership in order to access the free workstations reserved by the Library for the use of its patrons.

She entered the lift. Since she was the only occupant, she hit the pad for all twelve floors and got off at the fourth. She stalked the aisles until she found an unused carrel, and fed her rental card into the entry reader. An anonymous card,
paid for with an anonymous vend token. What she lost in a business expense tax deduction, she gained in privacy.

She locked the carrel door and activated the privacy shading in the doorside window. Then she opened her duffel and removed all the things she needed to initiate a proper search. Notepad. Stylus. Dispo of lemon tonic. Anti-trace jig. She activated the palm-sized jig and attached to the workstation core, so that no one would be able to monitor her search.

Jani sat at the desk. She ratcheted the touchboard into a more comfortable position, then hesitated just as she made ready to initiate systems. “Would I feel better if I didn't know?” Maybe. “Would I feel safer?” There was only one answer to that question—she gave it by activating the station and wading through the Library's arcane search driver to the vast reaches of Colonial Archives.

Casinos—Felix Majora.

The Felicianos had a well-earned reputation for enjoying life. Felix Majora contained forty-seven casinos within its metro limits, with Andalusia topping the alphabetical list. Jani, however, didn't zone in on that target immediately. Instead, she keyed into the archives of the Vox Nacional, Felix Colony's most popular newssheet. She pondered the keyword request, entered
death
and
accident
, set the time limits to the months Lucien spent in the colonies earlier that year, and initiated the search.

She sipped her tonic as the display faded and the device went about its business. After a few seconds, it brightened to active blue, then darkened to the deep gold background and red arabesques of the Vox Nacional screens. A flicker, then a flood of print as a formidable list filled the display.

Five hundred eighty-seven names.
Jani didn't know whether that number was high or low, incorrect or skewed by her search terms. She entered various and sundry codes and passwords she had acquired by means fair and foul during her years living “out.” Then she entered the reg code she had gleaned from Andalusia's chip and initiated a cross-sort of credit checks requested by Andalusia against the names of the deceased.