The Marann (20 page)

“The Sural had to know from the
beginning this would happen,” the Admiral said. “He had to know his
daughter would become a high one and Marianne would then be
ineligible to teach her.”

“Not necessarily,” Adeline called from
the kitchen.

“That wife of yours—” the Admiral
started.

“—
is useful to you,” she
finished, brushing flour off her hands as she walked toward them.
“The Sural’s daughter is already fluent in every language he wanted
Marianne to teach her. That was his original purpose in allowing a
human to live in the stronghold. At this point, she just needs to
expand the girl’s vocabulary until she comes of age. You know what
I think?”

“No, but I suspect you’re going to
tell him anyway,” her husband said.

Adeline poked Smithton in the ribs and
continued, “I think he’s attracted to her.”

Admiral Howard laughed. “They’re not
even human. What would he see in her?”

“They might as well be human. You’ve
seen the DNA analysis from that sample Marianne managed to get.
They’re kissing cousins to humanity. Marianne’s naturally reserved
manner and her looks—tell me you’ve
never
wanted to gaze
into those amazing eyes of hers—those might just make her exotic
and interesting to a Tolari. If only he hadn’t requested a female
tutor for his daughter!”

“They’re cold and calculating
bastards,” Smithton grumbled.

“Calculating, sure, but cold? We don’t
know that either. That’s just the face they show us.”

“Addie has a point, Smit,” the Admiral
said. “Some of their customs don’t make sense if they have as
little emotion as they let us see.”

A loud crash and a yelp came from the
kitchen. “Exactly!” Adeline cried, hurrying back to rejoin
Laura.

“How do you explain the way the high
ones let their children die in their damned tests?” Smithton called
after her.

“Ask me later—the vegetables need my
undivided attention right now.”

Smithton grunted and took another sip
of his drink.

<<>>

“So you see,” Adeline finished, “as in
some of our own Asian cultures, they reserve emotion for the
privacy of the family. And if you never anticipate grief, which
they don’t, you’re going to be a lot more sanguine about
everything. Think about it—if she’s a member of the family, they
could drop their guard around her. She could learn so much more
about their intimate family relationships!”

Smithton had to admit she had a point.
“So you think he’s inventing ways to keep her around because he
wants to bed her?”

His wife shrugged. “We don’t know
enough about their culture to speculate if they would allow one of
their high ones to have an intimate relationship with an outsider,
much less an alien outsider, so that particular activity may not
even be a part of his plans. But it does look like he wants to keep
her around, and if she has
status
in his household, she’ll
have access to a lot more information than she’s had up to now. You
can’t pass that up.”

“Marianne was also clear it puts her
life in danger, Addie,” the Admiral pointed out.

Adeline’s face clouded a little. “I
know. That’s the fly in the ointment.”

“No, that’s not the fly in the
ointment, Addie,” Smithton said, “the suicide switch
is.”

Her eyebrows flew up her forehead, and
her fork clattered onto her plate. “Suicide switch?
What?”

The Admiral cut in. “The Sural
requires her to be willing to die for him, as he does every other
member of his household,” he said. “That means she has to be wired.
The Sural won’t allow her to leave the stronghold to get it done up
here on the ship, nor will he allow us to phase a medical team down
to the planet to do it there. He’s asked us to send his
apothecaries the necessary equipment and information for them to do
it. Suicide wire technology is classified at the highest levels,
and even if their medical technology were up to the task, we
haven’t released the required level of human anatomical information
to them either. That’s why I can’t okay this on my own
authority.”

“Oh. My. God.” Adeline’s voice was
little more than a breath.

“I know how you feel about things like
that,” Smithton said, taking her hand.

Laura spoke up. “What if she wasn’t
wired? What if we use simpler technology which is just as effective
and doesn’t require specialized equipment or detailed physical
information?”

“What did you have in mind?” the
Admiral asked.

“You know how I like to watch old
movies—”

“You and my wife,” Smithton grumbled.
“You’re both stuck in the twentieth century, the pair of
you.”

The Admiral began to hum an ancient
song about a submarine. Smithton glared.

“Some old spook movies had secret
operatives with a false tooth filled with cyanide, an early version
of the suicide switch,” Laura continued. “Cyanide is pretty
crude—we can come up with something better than that—but the
principle would be the same. Or maybe two false teeth that have to
be broken at the same time, each containing a harmless substance
which only turns deadly when mixed with the other. But you get the
idea. You wouldn’t even need to send them any information—the
Tolari already know how to fix human teeth because Marianne had
that problem with her wisdom teeth a few years back.”

Adeline roused herself from her shock.
“It’s still unethical.”

“But it’s not
as
unethical, is
it?” Laura asked.

Adeline shot the Admiral’s wife a
blank stare. Then she picked the napkin from her lap and put it
beside her plate. “I’m not hungry anymore,” she said, and got up to
leave.

Smithton let her go.

<<>>

“Marianne, you can’t do this,” Addie
said as Smithton walked into their quarters later. She glanced up.
He shook his head at her and continued on to the bedroom, yawning
and untying his cravat as he walked. He seemed to doubt she could
say anything to sway Marianne Woolsey once she had made up her
mind. She turned her attention back to the monitor.

“Addie, I have to,” Marianne
replied.

“No, you don’t! You told me yourself,
you wouldn’t have to leave. You don’t even have to stop talking to
Kyza. You could still learn so much for us in the coming years
before Kyza comes of age.”

“I doubt I will ever have to use the
suicide switch, or the poison tooth, or whatever it is the medical
team comes up with. The Sural is the most honorable man I’ve ever
met and the most powerful Tolari on the planet. He won’t be
dishonored unless he’s captured, and he would die before he allowed
that to happen. And have you
seen
the strength of his
defenses? Suralia hasn’t even been attacked in a couple of
generations.
Tolari
generations, which I think are probably
twice as long as ours.”

“Just being willing—”

“It isn’t the same thing,” Marianne
interrupted.

“It’s unethical.”

“In the opinion of some, yes, but it’s
legal on two of the Six Planets.”

“Marianne!”

Marianne sighed. “I promise I’ll
consider what you’ve said. Will that help?”

Adeline slumped back in her chair,
feeling glum. “It’s the best I’m going to get, isn’t it,” she
said.

“I’m afraid so.”

Adeline sighed, then sat up
straighter. “There’s something else you need to know.”

“What’s that?”

“We think the Sural wants you to stay
because he’s attracted to you,” she said, putting on a professional
face. “If you
do
just find him attractive—if you don’t find
the idea of intimacy with an alien repulsive—it would be helpful if
you could—well—let him court you.” Adeline put her head in one hand
for a moment, and then looked up at the monitor again. “I know I’ve
teased you about him for years, but I’m serious this time. If he’s
interested in you, give him a chance.”

Marianne went still, eyes wide and
mouth agape, and then she burst into laughter. “Addie, it’s been
eight years
. Don’t you think if the Sural were attracted to
me, he would have said or done something by now?”

“You tell me, you’re the one down
there living with him. But no, I don’t think so, not necessarily.
They’re a long-lived race, and we’re sure the Sural’s a lot older
than he looks. He could be eighty or ninety, even a hundred
standard years old. He might consider four of their years too short
an acquaintance before a first date. And it’s not as if you’ve
encouraged him. I love you like the sister I never had, Marianne,
but you’re blind when it comes to men. You wouldn’t believe he was
courting you if he went down on one knee with a ring.”

“Oh Addie, you’re making this up as
you go along, just to yank my chain. And if he’s really
that
old, he’s way, way, way too old for me. I’m only thirty-four. Or is
it thirty-five now? What’s the date today, anyway—I keep losing
track.”

Adeline sighed. “You’re thirty-five.
But Marianne—just remember this one thing: nothing is more
important than doing the next right thing. Just focus on doing the
next right thing.”

“I promise I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask.”

<<>>

Smithton held his wife and stroked her
hair. She’d come to bed broody and silent. “It’ll be all right,
Addie.”

She shook her head. “I argued the
Admiral into an unethical course of action. If Marianne takes her
own life, some of the blame will be on
me
.”

“No, darling, you didn’t argue John
into anything, and Marianne is a grown woman. She’s responsible for
her own decisions.”

“I didn’t help!” she exclaimed. “What
am I going to do?”

“You can try to argue the Admiral out
of it. The inimitable Adeline Russell can argue anyone into or out
of anything, remember? Sell ice cubes to Eskimos, all that. You
should have been a traveling salesman.”

Despite herself, she laughed a little,
then fell quiet again and whispered, “I couldn’t talk Marianne out
of it.”

“Hmpf,” Smithton grumbled. “No one can
talk
that
woman out of anything. She’s practically a
sociopath.”

“Smitty! You can’t be ser—oh, I see.
You’re trying to argue
me
out of my mood.”

“Is it working?” he asked, making his
face as blank and innocent as he could.

Adeline pulled the pillow out from
under her head and clobbered him with it.

Chapter Eleven

Marianne entered the open study off the
stronghold’s audience room. Several days had passed since the
Admiral forwarded her request to Central Command, and she had an
answer for the Sural. He motioned her toward a chair without
looking up, engrossed in reading a report. She settled into the
chair he’d indicated and studied her hands.

A few minutes later, she looked up as
he stood and rounded his desk. He sat on its edge in front of her,
a gentle smile playing across his lips.

He already
knows.

What Addie had said about his feelings
crossed her mind. She dismissed it.
He’s pleased, that’s
all
, she thought.
Courting a peasant like me! What a bizarre
idea. But if even I can tell he’s happy, the whole stronghold has
to know
.

“It is not a secret,” he said in
Hungarian, his smile broadening.

She laughed. “That took you longer
than usual,” she said, wondering if the computers on the
Alexander
could translate Yup’ik. It had become a game with
the Sural to see how long she could use a human language in her
communications with the ship before he learned it. He already knew
French, Hindi, German, and Mandarin. At this rate, she would run
out of languages before Kyza came of age.

“When do your apothecaries phase down
the implants?” he asked in his own language.

“In a few hours,” she answered. “The
drug is a controlled substance. They can’t synthesize a sufficient
quantity of it all at once. The computer won’t let
them.”

He nodded. “A wise
precaution.”

Marianne studied the Sural, trying to
read him.
Maybe they’ll teach me how they do that, once I’m one
of them.

“We might,” he said.

She laughed. “How do you
do
that?”

“Humans are easy to read.” He
smiled.

She shook her head and sighed, pushing
down feelings of inferiority. “I don’t have your empathy. I can’t
read you, and I don’t know how to mask myself.”

He raised an eyebrow. “No one can read
me unless I allow it,” he said, “but as soon as your doctors phase
down the drugs, my apothecaries will insert the implants. And
then—” He stopped.

“And then?”

“Then you will visit the Jorann and
enter a new world. Our world.” He pushed away from the desk and
waited for her to get to her feet. “Come. Walk with me.”

She fell into step with him as he
walked out into the gardens. Flutters chattered and sang in the
cora trees, their plumage flashing in the sunlight, and flowers
bloomed in the bluish-green ferny groundcover she still called
grass. Mid-spring on Tolar was beautiful, if colder than her idea
of spring. They wandered along a sparkling brook. The Sural broke
his silence as he stopped by a large rock next to a tree near the
stream.