Contact Imminent (25 page)

Jani looked back at Torin, who straightened as though someone had grabbed the back of his trousers and yanked up. “Don't record this.”

“I know. I'm not completely without sense.” Torin's air of deference vanished, replaced by the universal sense of injury peculiar to the teenager of any species. “I'll write it down later, when it's over. I have a very good memory.”

“He does, you know. Scary, sometimes.” Brondt jerked his chin toward a wide, flat rock that sat like a roughed-out table in the middle of the beach. “A few of the hybrid Haárin still maintain contact with the enclave.” He sat on a low out-cropping that stuck out from the rock's side. “They learned
of ní Tsecha's recall. They think Oligarch Cèel will kill him.”

“So do I.” Jani took a cross-legged seat on the rock's edge. “Gisa needs to step aside. The Outer Circle Haárin need to convince Cèel that they're united, that any action he takes against ní Tsecha could cripple him in event of a challenge from another bornsect.” She watched Torin chase a tiny scuttling creature about the sand, touching his toe to it to send it hopping. “Feyó's rounding up her supporters among the other enclaves. I tried to convince Gisa to cease her bid for dominance. Don't know if I made any headway or not.”

“So now you're seeking to erode her support from within?” Brondt pulled in his boot just as Torin's creature leaped past, thumb-sized and twin-clawed, with stalked eyes and an iridescent carapace. “That could take some time. Do you think you have it to spend?”

“Probably not.” Jani gave a silent cheer as the creature vanished into a gap between some rocks. As always, she felt a kinship with anything that was being chased. “First, I need to find out if ní Tsecha is still in Chicago. Whether or not he still is will dictate my next move. Until then, I'll see to matters here, and…”

Brondt nodded. “We shut down quite a few smuggling operations during my time at the station. We always reached a point where we had to sit and wait for something. Information. Confirmation. A noose to tighten. I always found it the most difficult time.” He made a show of studying his hands. “Don't look now, but you're about to get your first shot at consensus-building.”

Jani looked up the steep enclave road just as the first in a series of scattered groups reached the flat stretch of sand. She recognized most of the hybrids as those who had departed sacrament early, including Torin's older female, who joined him at the place where the hopping crustacean disappeared and probed with him through the rocks.

The others spread out, taking seats on nearby boulders. Then those perches filled, and still they came, some with blankets that they spread over the dry rocky sand, a few with folding chairs. Jani watched as they settled in, expressions guarded yet expectant. Niall's words returned to her…
charisma…mystique…legend
…and still she couldn't accept that they had come here to see her.
I'm Tsecha's representative
. Yes, that was it. A substitute for something else. That, she could understand.

“Ná Kièrshia?” A younger male with the solemn mien of a university student raised his hand. “Are you staying, you and Doctor Shroud?”

“I saw him go to your room.” A young female, no more than a teenager, peered at Jani over the young male's shoulder. “And. Not. Come. Out.” Her face split in a tooth-baring grin. Then clapped her hand over her mouth and doubled over, stricken by a case of the giggles.

Jani felt her cheeks flame as the humanish hybrids hid their smiles and the Haárin hybrids bared their teeth more openly. “Thank you for noticing.”

“But it is just as it was before.” Torin's friend had taken a seat atop a rock, while Torin sat on the ground at her feet. “He and you, creator and created. It is fitting.”

Jani swallowed.
They know everything about my life. I'm an object of study
. A galling thought for someone who used to pack up and go if she encountered the same face on a street one time too many. “Are you an historian as well?”

“I am Lisse.” The female looked more humanish than any of the other hybrids, most likely because she had begun the process so late in life. “I am Torin's home-mother, and an historian as well.” She sat forward, eyes like crystal shining with interest. “May I ask—do you mind—your treatments? What do you recall of them?”

“Of the actual insertions?” Jani shook her head. “Nothing. I remember the time just before the explosion. Someone shouted something to the pilot. Half a sentence. ‘Hey—'” She felt the pressure of being the center of attention, of mul
tiple pairs of eyes fixed upon her, heard the water and the birds and the nonsound of bated breath. “Month and a half later, I woke up to find John Shroud sitting in a chair beside my bed.” Would she ever forget his solemn white face, or his first words to her?
Hello, creation. My name is John Shroud. Unfortunate name for a physician, don't you think
?

“Did you look as you do now?” That from a humanish-appearing female who shared a blanket with an Haárin male.

Jani held out her arm and rubbed it with her other hand. “They had just taken me out of the immersion tank the day before. My skin was shiny, and very pink.” She fingered one of her curls. “I had some sparse black stuff growing out of my head that in theory was hair. My eyebrows were little tufty things. Eyes, a little lighter than they are now. Definitely not humanish-looking.” The memories returned, bringing with them the long-forgotten smells of conductive gel and warm plastic. “John and Val Parini prodded me out of bed the next day, made me walk a few steps. After that came therapy—muscle stimulation, mental exercises. Amazing the things you forget when you're in an induced coma for six weeks.”

Torin raised his hand. “What do you like most about being a hybrid?”

“Like?” Jani grew as still as the rock on which she sat. Her mind blanked, and she knew the sick feeling she'd had to battle whenever an interrogation had gone too long and cut too close. When the only answer that occurred was the absolute truth, and the absolute truth was the last thing she knew she should say. “I never thought about like or dislike before.” She sensed the disappointment in some expressions, and pushed on anyway. If she lied, she might be able to win them for a short time, but the truth always came out, and when it did, she'd lose them forever. “As I changed more and more, as I grew sicker and sicker, I—” She licked her lips and looked everywhere but at the faces around her. “You chose this. I didn't. There will always be a difference in our feelings for that reason. Some of you chose for health rea
sons, others, because you believe in the blending, but you still made the choice yourselves.”

“Isn't there anything about it that you enjoy?” Lisse asked.

“That I can offer my loyalty and regard or withhold them, as I see fit.” Jani inhaled shakily—thank Ganesh for the shield of abstractions. “No individual, no system, merits my esteem solely because as a humanish I am bound to follow.” She grinned weakly, then shrugged. “That sounds so arrogant. But I've been accused more than once of having a stiff neck.” She thought of a few joking replies, but withheld them. These questions deserved serious answers, whether or not she felt comfortable giving them. Whether or not they were the ones her audience wanted to hear.

“My parents are Acadian. They returned there recently, after trying to live in Chicago.” Jani imagined the scent of her mother's hair, and closed her eyes for a moment. “Acadia is their home. It calls to them. They carry something of it with them when they leave, and when they return, they bring it back with them, and they have the whole again.” Did she make sense? Who would appear more bewildered to a wandering outsider, she or her audience? “I have never been in a place where I felt whole, where when I left, I took something of it with me. Humanish or hybrid, I've never felt that…contentment? Is that the word?” She pressed her hand to the rock, felt its warmth, but at the same time, its hardness. “That's how I'd answer you. That the enjoyment you speak of is contentment, and that I've never known it.”

Lisse watched her. Did she seem so wise because of her age? Because her gaze never wavered? “I am most sorry.”

“I am not,” the somber student piped. “Those who are content never strive. Those who are content cannot lead. She is the Kièrshia—she will not be content until all is as it must be!”

The words echoed off the rocks, the cliff face. Jani felt the gazes once more, some pitying, others rapt with an awe that terrified her.
I'm only here because there's no other place for
me, because when there are things to be done, I do them—don't look at me like that
!

“We should walk, I think.” Brondt stood abruptly. “Show ná Kièrshia this place we call home.” He kept his back turned to her as the hybrids gathered their gear. “Meet here in five minutes.” He waited until they'd begun their trudge to their houses to turn to Jani.

“Was I that obvious?” She slid down from the rock and bent low, stretching her back.

“I did detect a trapped look, yes.” Brondt crossed his arm over his chest in a gesture of uncertainty. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

“Henry the Fourth, Part Two.” Jani fielded his look of surprise. “Too bad you and Niall Pierce started off on the wrong foot. You have a lot in common. A love of the classics.” She sniffed. “And an eye that's too sharp by half.”

Brondt cast her a sideways glance, then looked out toward the water. “They say that those who wish leadership the least are the ones who merit it the most.”

“Are you my conscience, Dieter?”

“Do you need one?” Brondt turned back to face the houses, and watched the hybrids make their empty-handed way back down the road. “No, I don't think you do. A little peace, perhaps, but the two don't seem to go together, do they?”

Jani stared at the man's back, willed him to face her, and knew he wouldn't. Then she looked over the heads of the approaching hybrids and saw John standing on the overhang looking down at her, the sun brilliant off his shirt, his hair. She raised a hand in a small wave—he responded with a barely detectable movement of his fingers. She could feel his eyes on her as she turned and started down the beach. Then the hybrids closed in around her, distracting her, and by the time she turned again, he had gone.

“Haven't seen Pascal around Far North Lakeside as much since the Vynshàrau challenged him to that duel.” Cashman stopped in front of a store window and ogled the hologram models that danced through the air in skimpy spring clothes. “I heard he's laying low, hoping it will all blow over.”

Micah closed his eyes. He hadn't wanted to join the gang for their weekly day trip into Chicago, but they'd begun remarking about his absences more and more and he'd run out of excuses.
So what happens—we're not off the train five minutes and someone brings up the goddamn
—“It's not a
duel
.” He heard his voice tight with anger, and tried to stop himself. But he'd been bottling things up for weeks now. He had to allow the occasional vent or he'd go nuts. “They explained it on
Blue 'n'Grey Today
. It's been in all the 'sheets. It's a
challenge
. They're declaring their mutual animosity to the world. A few cuts on one another's arms, a little blood, and it's all over. It's not like a real fight. Nobody dies.” He tried to focus on the dancing models, lose himself in the vision of female breasts and thighs and flouncing hair. But one of them looked too much like Manda, whom he'd seen die three times in the past week alone. He turned away from the window and fixed on the midday traffic instead.

“Jeez, bust me to Spacer First Class. Take my stripes away.” Cashman glared at him, then rolled his eyes.

They continued to move en masse down State Street. Micah counted Cashman and Hough, Court and her usual gaggle of hangers-on, a couple of new additions from SysAdmin, all out to enjoy the bright sun and warm breeze, the first hints of summer. Or in his case, to get them all off his back.

But who knows…?
Micah took in the buildings and crowds and noise. The vivid colors. The sense of a place as far removed from exos and mid-ranges and Sergeant Chrivet as it was possible to be and still remain on this planet. Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd find one thread of sanity amid the tangle of the past weeks. Maybe he'd forget for a little while, catch his breath, and decompress.

“Fabe's right.” Hough shot a questioning look at Micah and cleared his throat, the resident expert determined to re-assert himself. “Look at the forearms of any of the idomeni—they're all hacked up. The more scars you bear, the more declared enemies you have, the more honor. Winning isn't the point. Death sure as hell isn't.” He paused, his thin little gash of a mouth barely visible. “Pascal's probably spending time training. These fights are very ceremonial, very ritualized. If he gets it wrong, he makes us look bad.”

Bullshit
. Micah walked to the outside of the group, near the curb, and watched the skimmers course past.
He made us look bad when he accepted the damned fight in the first place
. When he let himself get into the situation where Ghos, the Vynshàrau security officer, challenged him. When he opened up the Service to reporters and Cabinet inquiries and embarrassing questions, and sullied it with alien traditions.

“If it's not a duel, why has the Judge Advocate petitioned Diplo to intervene and get the idomeni to retract the challenge?” Court stood before another store window and watched the clothes flit by. “I mean, they've been digging out laws from the 1800s trying to find an excuse.” After a few seconds, the floating images flickered and changed, so
that a dozen versions of Court's blond curviness filled the space, each wearing a different outfit. “I don't think it's going to happen, myself.”

“Once a challenge has been accepted, neither side can back out.” Hough glanced back at Micah, his voice growing louder and more assured when he realized he had no competition for this one. “If Pascal gets hit by a skimtruck, he'll get a postponement. That's the best he can hope for at this point.”

“I still don't think it will happen. Too much publicity already, and everyone's locking down. No more statements issued without Mako's OK. Public Affairs is hiring contractors just to man the comports and say ‘No comment' to whoever calls for a statement. It's a nightmare.” Court stepped away from the window and headed for a set of double doors that led into the store.

“No!” Cashman bolted after her. “No shopping—we made a deal!”

“I just want to see
one
thing.” Court pointed in the vague direction of the dancing images, making it impossible to determine exactly which thing she had in mind. “It will only take a minute.”

“Famous last words.” Hough hung back to walk with Micah. “I could do with something to drink. You?”

They cut through the store to a noisy arcade, bought frozen sodas at an autokiosk, and found a table amid the press of shoppers catching their breath and store staff taking a break. A minute or so of increasingly edgy silence passed—Micah had been relieved enough to get away from the rest of the gang, but as had become more and more the case lately, he found that he had nothing to say to any of his fellow bullpen denizens. He'd monitored their behavior for some sign that one of them could have belonged to the Group, and once he realized that none of them did, he lost interest. They spent their spare time cruising the Veedrome, rattling on about girlfriends and promotions and upcoming leave. He spent his time killing Vynshàrau in a hundred dif
ferent ways, then dying himself in a hundred and one. That tended to limit possible topics of conversation.

“Congrats on nailing the Tech One,” Hough finally offered, poking the icy slush in his dispo cup with a straw. “They'll probably bump you up to corporal before you know it.”

“Thanks.” Micah used up a few seconds pulling in a mouthful of strawberry slurry. “They're offering it again next month—thinking of going for it?”

“Thinking about it. Yeah.”

“Good luck.”

Hough nodded, narrowed eyes fixed on a trio of girls who giggled past. “Guess you must feel pretty relieved about this challenge, huh? Got Pascal out of your hair.”

Micah slowly set down his drink. He blanked his mind before any unwelcome ideas invaded, those months-ago thoughts of killing Cashman and hiding him in the delivery cage having taught him a lesson. It bothered him at times, knowing what he could do if he had to. “What do you mean?”

“I saw him a few times, catching you up in the hallways. Making conversation.” Hough sucked his teeth. “I never heard anything about him and enlisteds—he's always been pretty careful to toe the regulation line. But there's a first time for everything, I guess.”

Micah stared into his drink. Too pink for blood, but if he thought hard enough…

“He asked for you a couple of times, on days when you weren't in the pen. Seemed disappointed that you weren't around to handle problems with his…equipment.” Hough capped his slur with another lick of the teeth.

That's the story going around? Fine
. Micah felt his face heat.
Faber supplies porn to anyone who asks. Faber's got the infamous Captain Pascal aching to wipe his stripe
.

“He picked an Haárin second.” Hough raised a hand to beckon to Cashman, who had wandered into the arcade looking irritated. “Dathim Naré, Tsecha Egri's suborn. Now
he spends most of his time at the Haárin enclave training while Diplo and the JA try to figure out how to fit this challenge into Service protocols.”

“They shouldn't have to.” Micah braced for the onslaught as the rest of the group departed the store and approached the table.

Hough shrugged. “It was bound to happen sooner or later. Hell, his girlfriend, Kilian, fought a challenge last summer. Not that anyone would call her real Service.” He stood, all good manners as a package-laden Court and her friends drew near. “We work with the idomeni. Trade with them. Better we figure out how to handle stuff like this once and for all.”

“Once and for all, yeah. By making sure it never happens again.” Micah's reply was drowned out by Cashman's loud complaints, Court's rejoinders.
By making sure—
He remained seated as the girls joined them, drawing sharp looks from Hough and Cashman.
By making sure it never—happens
. He swallowed fast as the oversweet slush bubbled up to the back of his throat.

“Let's get going,” Cashman muttered. “Before something else catches her eye.”

They left the arcade and walked back outside, the bickering over who would help Court carry her bags providing counterpoint to the more usual city noises, the blare of skimmer proximity alarms and the clamor of conversations in a multitude of languages. Micah hung back, anxious to avoid Hough and his innuendoes. Needing to think.

We're going to attack the embassy
. Each word rang in his head like a knell. He had no proof, no clue, only the buzz in his head and the ache in his gut, and the mental hangover of a hundred sim sessions. The sure certainty he felt at times that something would happen.

“I say it's time for lunch!” Court announced. Others shouted the names of restaurants—the Interior Ministry public park was chosen, and off they headed. Micah followed well behind, leg muscles tingling with each strike of his shoes upon the walkway, as they turned off State and
headed for one of the pedestrian overpasses that led to the lakeside of the Boul Mich.

Micah mounted the overpass steps, stopping when he reached the summit and looking past the sprawling Interior Ministry grounds to the line of trees beyond that marked the southern border of the idomeni embassy compound.
I know that layout better than I know Far North Lakeside's
. Every corridor, utility chase, private chamber and meeting room etched into his brain by the screams of the wounded, the combined stenches of burned flesh, blood, and shit. The shoulder-pounding kicks of his mid-range, so strong that not even his exo's force dissipaters could dampen them completely. The pound of his heart, and the rasp of his breathing as it echoed inside his helmet.

I know that layout
. But then, he'd learned many layouts over the course of his training. Shèráin sites like the Temple at Rauta Shèràa. The monument-lined corridor that connected the Academy campus to the Council buildings. Colonial sites like idomeni consulates and Haárin enclaves. And the terrestrial sites, such as the facility in Death Valley, the enclave of the Chicago Haárin, and the embassy.

Combat training for the Cause
. He wondered how he could have ever believed it was that simple.
But we always come back to the embassy
. Had anyone else figured it out? Manda? Bevan the Brain? Did Chrivet know, or was she as uninformed as the rest of them, a tool for whoever had chosen them, designed their training, and planned their fate?

“Jeez, scholar, will you move or something?”

Micah turned to find Cashman at his shoulder, one of Court's shopping sacks in each hand. “Just taking in the view.”

“You're getting weirder by the day, you know that?” Cashman trudged past him to the opposite end of the overpass, where Hough and the rest waited. “Let's go.”

 

He made it home eventually, sick from a lunch he hadn't wanted to eat, idiot talk he hadn't wanted to listen to. Hough
had left him alone, small thanks for little favors, after a few veiled comments about Pascal failed to find their mark.

He'd stopped by the delivery cage, and felt no surprise whatsoever to find the white mailer in his locker. Headed upstairs with sweat-slick hands. Counted his steps down the hall to his flat, and remained in the hallway for some time after his front door had opened completely.

He talked himself into going inside—really, what choice did he have? Locked the door. Went directly to his bathroom and shoved a finger down his throat, eliminating the nasty, not to mention life-threatening, possibility that he'd vomit during the sim and choke in his headset. Cleaned up. Changed clothes. Collected his gear and lay on his couch, ripping open the mailer and inserting the wafer into the slot. Prayed, even though he knew it would do no good. He wanted to be wrong, and he knew he wasn't.

The tones sounded in his ears, over and over and over, until he thought they'd never en—

—Chrivet paced in front of them, an image of the Commonwealth Field of Stars showing on a wall-mounted display behind her. She wore her serious expression, a morose draw-down of the corners of her mouth that took the rest of her face with it. She was lecturing them again, about their fitness as Spacers and the rightness of their cause, something Micah had taken to calling Philosophy 101.

Get on with it
. He sat in the rearmost row of seats, alone. Bevan and Foley sat in the front, of course. Manda, her hair gathered in a ponytail that made her look like a prep schooler, sat near the middle and traded whispers with another woman named Patel.

Get on with it
. He stared down at his hands. As always, the thoughts that occurred to him when he was conscious intruded now that he'd entered the scenario. He'd stopped wondering whether or not that was normal, and knew he didn't dare ask Chrivet or anyone else about it at this stage of the game. Instead he kept his mouth shut and pondered the same problems that he had when he'd walked the
Chicago streets a few hours earlier. Would they attack the embassy? If so, when?

“Mister Tiebold?”

Micah closed his eyes, then opened them and raised his head. “Yes, ma'am.”

Chrivet remained silent and watched him, something she did more and more as of late. It was as if she found something lacking in even his simplest responses. Something lacking in him. “Am I boring you again?”

Micah sat up straighter as everyone turned to look at him. Bevan, he noted, had one eye slightly higher than the other, so that he always looked skeptical. Foley pouted, like the brat he was. Manda, it pained him to note, fixed him with the same puzzled gaze as did most everyone else. Nothing special. Nothing special at all.