Contact Imminent (26 page)

Micah's chest tightened as a surge of anger burst through him like a blown grenade.
I'm not bored, ma'am—just wondering how I'm going to die this time is all
. He breathed deep, when all he wanted to do was shout. Tried to sit on every self-destructive impulse he had as well as a few he didn't realize he nursed until now, and then decided the hell with it.
We who are about to die were wondering
—“When are we going to hit the embassy, ma'am? That's what we're working for, isn't it? That's our target.” He heard gasps, sensed the tension of breaths held, and watched Chrivet's hands tighten into fists as yet again he jumped the starter gun and offended her sense of Spacer fitness. “I want to hit 'em, ma'am. The idomeni.” He entoned the party line, in part because he believed it with all his heart, but mostly because he sensed that if he didn't, he'd be in even more trouble than he already was. “I want to bring them down.”

Chrivet's expression shifted, from angry to a pinched annoyance that made her look a prig. “So you want to bring the idomeni down, Mister Tiebold?” She paused for effect. “Well, you're going to get your chance.” She reached behind her and touched a pad fixed to the wall beside the display. The Field of Stars vanished.

Micah bit back a curse as images of Pascal bloomed before him, larger than life shots of the man walking around the base, sitting at his desk, making a presentation.
Damn it, can't I get away from him anywhere!

Then came the shots from the
Tribune-Times
, the cheap gossip sheets. Pascal with the Exterior Minister and other assorted escorts, male and female both, their common thread the fact that they were all older than he, and much, much richer.

Then came the images with Jani Kilian. The social, at a concert, a football game. The professional, as they departed the idomeni embassy, one of the ministries, stood talking to PM Cao.

Micah compared the Kilian he had seen in the bunker with the one he saw here. The same eerie eyes. The same skinny long-boniness, as though she'd shake apart in a high wind.
It doesn't even look human anymore, and he fucks it every chance he gets
.

“I tell you, ladies and gentlemen.” Chrivet tapped the display with her finger. “I would like nothing better than to drive a knife through Kilian's mutant eyes for the filth she's inflicted upon this Earth.”

“Why is he allowed to remain in the Service?” That from Bevan, his voice thick with revulsion.

“A good question, Mister Bevan, one that many like minds have asked for some time now.” Chrivet linked her hands behind her back. She wore a T-shirt, and her arm muscles bunched and flexed with the movement. “‘Friends in high places' is the best excuse any of us could come up with, and where has that laxity led us? To the point where this stain on our collective honor is allowed to go where he will and do what he wishes, and thus drags the Service down to his low level. To the point where he will be taking direction in a circus ring from a bunch of frog-eyed mush-mouths while our oh-so-potent diplomatic officers stand to one side and kneel to traditions that are not ours, that we don't hold with, that are alien to us in every way, shape, and form.” She
swallowed hard, and shook her head. “Can we tolerate this in a human Service?”

“No! Ma'am!”

“So what are we gonna do!”

“Take 'em down!”

“Take 'em down.” Chrivet smiled. “On the day in question, ladies and gentlemen, you have been chosen to show certain interested parties just what true Spacers think of this insult to our great traditions, to our way of life. You have friends in high places, too—they have overseen your training and granted you the honor of showing this Commonwealth what real Spacers are made of.” For the first time, she regarded them not with hard-eyed disdain, but with a kindness, a pride, that she hadn't seemed capable of before. “It is indeed the embassy, ladies and gentlemen. You will receive the details soon. Until then, we will do as we have been—we will work through it, and work through it, and work through it again, until each and every one of you could take that place out in your sleep.” She straightened up and clapped her hands once. “OK, folks. Let's move!”

 

They set up a jump point in the thin strip of Exterior wilderness that bordered the embassy. They'd be in trouble if an actual Exterior security patrol showed up, but the ministry ran a skeleton staff when the minister traveled off-planet, as she did now. They didn't expect discovery.

Typical early spring morning, damp and colder for it. A hard wind blew in off the lake. Micah sat in the mud beneath a bare-limbed tree and fiddled with a receiver, trying to pick up any transmissions that emerged from the scattered embassy outbuildings. Even though his suit liner protected him from the cold and wet, he still knew that he sat in
mud
, heard the damp squelch every time he moved. He adjusted the receiver earsert and upped the gain, straining for any organized sound amid the hum and hiss. The beat of code. The organized gibberish of scrambled voices. Waste of time on his part—the autoreceiver scanned the signals better than he
could. But he couldn't convince himself to hand control of his fate over to the mechanicals. Not just yet.

He felt a touch on his shoulder, and looked up to find Manda standing over him, helmet in hand. She'd already donned her balaclava, from which a few stray curls escaped to frame her heart-shaped face.

“It's almost time.” Her voice, never sturdy, sounded ready to crack. “I just wanted to say that however this ends—I just wanted to say—” Her lovely eyes filled. One tear spilled over. She locked her hands behind his head and bent down to him, pulling him close, kissing him. She tasted of the rank coffee they had all drunk, but her lips felt silken and she smelled like flowers and those were the sensations Micah took to heart.

Then she was gone, and the jump came to life like a waking beast, donning gear, checking weapons.

Micah rose and stared across the border to the quiet beyond.

 

A sun obscured by cloud. The lake turned into choppy swell by the wind. Harder to stay upright, and keep from plowing into the person in front of you. Yet still they pounded onward, following the shore, toward their target.

“Let's hit 'em in the gut, boys and girls. Let's kick 'em where they live.” Chrivet picked up the pace. “Air all clear, Tiebold? No marble-eyes watching us?”

Micah checked his readouts. “All clear, ma'am.”

They burst onto the beach, as they had before. Up the ramp, blowing sheds as they went. Across the gardens and through the walls. Micah applied his lessons learned from past scenarios, holding back when necessary, pushing on when every nerve in his body yelled
No!
Following behind O'Shae, taking out Vynshàrau with every blast of his mid-range, pounding, pounding.

Thorough the doors to the main hall. O'Shae killing the deadhead, then switching to grenades. Joining up with Fo
ley, blasting down every hallway. Smoke. Sparks from blown arrays. Sputtering illumins. Vynshàrau in exos, fighting like demons.

Some fell and rose again. Some fell and remained still. As the meeting room cleared, Micah slipped behind O'Shae again. More halls. Rooms. Bodies. Growing quiet.

“Six five oh, clear.”

“Four eight seven, clear.”

“Oh nine one—”

Quieter.

“Three four—”

“Eight one—”

“All sectors secure.”

Quietest.

O'Shae stopped and turned to him, then raised her faceplate. “Whaddya say, Tieb?”

Micah looked down at his mid-range. For the first time since he'd started the training, he powered it down.

 

We won
.

Micah still sat on his couch, his headgear cradled in his lap. “We cleared the place out. Secured it.” Everyone hit their marks, pressed their charge-throughs, came across. He'd even seen Manda at the end of it, hair matted from her helmet, exo streaked with someone else's blood. Something else's blood. Not hers.

He got up. Paced the room, and felt his bones sing with every move. Pulled the wafer from the headset and gathered up his player, then pulled on a jacket and headed for the drop point in Forrestal Block to unload his data.
We did it
. He barely stifled the urge to punch the air.
We did it!

The air smelled cleaner than Micah had ever known it, as remarkable as if he'd never inhaled it before. He walked as though drunk, barely sensing his feet on the walkway. He tucked the wafer into the inside pocket of his jacket and stopped to mime a baseball pitch.
Strike three—Vynshàrau
out!
He set up, went into his windup, and followed through, powering forward into the rough grip of a civvie-clad older man who'd just emerged from the Forrestal One lobby.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Micah straightened the man's rumpled jacket. Then he backed away, giddy and sheepish, and felt the first whisper of doubt as the man stared at him, dark eyes in a dark face, familiar yet out of place.

“Desk jockey has no idea what he's in for.” A voice like salt on a wound. “Desk jockey gonna die.” Then he hunched his shoulders and strode away, moving a little faster than normal, the way some small men did.

Micah turned and watched the man.
I've seen him before…I've seen—
His heart stuttered when the name came back to him. Veles, who'd assisted Pascal during the interrogation-that-wasn't, as well as with the sucker punch with the prototype shooter.

I'll be watching you, Faber. Morning, noon, and night
.

Micah wiped a hand over the back of his mouth. He watched Veles until the man disappeared over a rise, then continued on his way with a heavier step. Into the lobby, the comport booth. Sit down. Activate the unit. Breathe.
We won.

Micah felt his jacket pocket for the wafer. Felt again. Dug deep and rooted around, pulling out a few flecks of thread and nothing else.

He took off after Veles, across the lobby and out the door, dodging pedestrians who seemed to have come out of nowhere. Over the rise, then flat out. Running. Running. Heart in his throat. On the lookout for the small dark man and knowing exactly what he'd do when he found him.

He could run when he had to, but he was no runner. His legs gave out first, oxygen starvation stopping him like a blow. He pulled in great sobs of air, doubled over, then dropped to his knees. Searched for any sign, and found nothing.

“I still maintain that the challenge must be delayed.” Tsecha, discordant in green and gold, tore a chunk of clay from the sculpture set against the meeting room wall and worked it between his palms, squeezing it as though it contained something he needed. “There is too much occurring now. Trespassers who leave food about the embassy compound. The mine investigation, which still goes on.”

“An Haárin dominant who denies his propitiator and now seeks to avoid the enmity and discipline of Temple.” Shai turned from the window opposite Tsecha and his sculpting and bared her teeth. “How many of the acolytes' scars do you bear on your arms, Tsecha? How many of them did you fight in the circle in the time before the war?”

“And now it is their time—is that what you tell me, Shai?” Tsecha pushed the clay chunk back into place, then punched it with his fist. “I did as I most had to, then and now.”

“As did Temple, then and now. So you wish to delay matters here in order that your return to Shèrá is set back as well. I have known you too long to suppose otherwise, for I do not recall, and truly, that you were ever overwhelmed by events.” Shai pressed a hand to her forehead in a vague, humanish gesture. “This is perhaps, I most think, because you
were responsible for those events yourself.” She let her hand fall and walked to the center of the oblong space, her sand-colored overrobe a comforting contrast to her diplomatic brown tunic and trousers. “Elon, step farther into this room, please, and prevent this Haárin and I from coming to blows.”

Elon moved away from the entry and approached Shai, her posture as straight as she could manage in Tsecha's presence.
Anathema
. How could she have ever regarded such as he with any sort of respect, even that of an esteemed enemy? “I am here, nìaRauta.”

“You have not brought Ghos with you?” Shai looked to the entry, her shoulders rounding.

“No, nìaRauta. He works in the practice circle now.” As she had when she watched Ghos batter Pascal on the veranda, she felt herself move, a slow drift from side to side, as she imagined her suborn strike and parry with the practice blades. “I advised him to do such, since humanish do not understand the ways of
à lérine
and thus may attack improperly.”

“It is good that he is elsewhere. I have no wish to see him now, for he is another with whom I would most happily come to blows.” Shai walked to the last in a row of wire-frame chairs and sat, drawing her overrobe around her as though the air chilled. “It pains me as sickness to say this, Elon, but the Haárin who stands in this room now is as correct in his opinion of this damned challenge as the gods and circumstance allow him to be.”

“The Haárin who stands in this room now rejoices in your esteem, Shai, and truly.” Tsecha drove his thumb into the clay and worked a series of grooves across the surface. Two lines down, then two across them, so that together they formed a grid of nine squares. “If he could rejoice in a decision cancelling this damned challenge, he would feel even more as blessed by the gods.” He etched a figure in each of the diagonal squares, dragged a forefinger across the entire pattern, then dipped his hand in a nearby container of water and rubbed the clay smooth once more. “My Lucien is not
my Jani. He does not understand the circle, and when he does not understand, he strikes as a serpent.” He picked up the damp cloth that had served as the sculpture covering and spread it over the clay. “If Ghos had asked Caith's aide in choosing the worst humanish for him to challenge, she would have led him to no other human but to my Lucien.”

Shai squinted toward Tsecha's labors, then shook her head and gestured to Elon. “Such was not the time for Ghos to challenge the humanish, Elon. Especially a Service humanish, for it causes Mako and his suborns to wonder if revenge for Feres was his thought.”

“It was not, nìaRauta.” Elon walked across the room to the table containing the stone formations. “This I know and truly.” She stood before one of the arrangements, taking as much strength as she could in their order and beauty as her heart pounded and hers and Ghos's words sounded in her head.
Will you kill Pascal, Ghos of the Stones? If I am able
. But not for revenge, no—Pascal's blood was as that of an animal, and could not serve as fair exchange for that of Feres.
It is enough that he should die for that which he is
. For the disorder he represented, the godlessness that he was.

Elon took up one of the stones, clenching it as she fought the desire to fling it into the rest, to scatter them across the floor. When she sensed motion from the corner of her eye, she half turned, her hand raised, the rounded point of the stone facing out as the edge of a blade—

—and met Tsecha's gaze, ancient gold and arrogant, mocking her as it had in Rauta Shèràa Temple.

“NìRau Ghos, it most seems, wonders at my Lucien's loyalties. He believes him a spy, although for whom he cannot say.” Tsecha took the stone from Elon's grasp and tossed it up in the air, then caught it.

“Pascal
is
a spy, Tsecha.” Shai gripped the chair next to hers and pushed it back and forth until it aligned with the rest of the row. “Each time he visits here with you and Dathim, I anticipate my dealings with Service Diplomatic,
and all the new varieties of requests from General Burkett and his staff, for I know as I know my robes that Pascal goes to them as soon as he finishes here.”

“He could do much worse, Shai. This I know, and truly, as do you.” Tsecha again tossed the stone in the air, and caught it. “But for every thing he takes, he gives something back, and now he gives us what I tell you now, what I have tried to tell you this entire day. He believes, with reason, that these vehicles that have invaded the embassy grounds are of the Service. He believes, for reasons he has yet to make clear, that there are those in the Service who would attack us here and at the enclave, and see us driven from this city.”

“We always knew this, Tsecha,” Shai replied. “Even without your Pascal's clarity. The mine they have yet to explain is, I most fear, an illustration of this. It was no accident—this I know and truly. It was meant to be. It was meant to kill Haárin, and took Feres instead, but we will wait unto death for the humanish to admit such.”

Tsecha tossed and caught the stone one last time, then held it out to Elon, remaining silent until she took it from his hand. “My Lucien fears something greater, Shai. Greater than a mine, or food in your outbuildings. He fears an assault, against this place or the enclave. An attack by those trained to do such, outfitted with equipment and weaponry as one sees on the battlefield.”

Elon placed the stone Tsecha had handed her back within its arrangement, taking care to avoid touching it where he had. “When would this attack occur?” She picked up another stone, this time cradling it between her palms so he could not take it.

“That, my Lucien cannot say.” Tsecha watched her as though they stood within the circle, his gaze fixed on her hands as his shoulders rounded in mirror of her posture. “All that he may tell us now is that we must prepare, and keep watch.”

Shai stood. “After the explosion of a single mine and the death of Feres, Prime Minister Li Cao and General Burkett
and Admiral-General Mako became as my constant companions. I believed and truly that they would never leave my side. I would expect even greater visitation in the case of a supposed assault, Tsecha. Roomfuls of humanish who would remain with me as my shadow from early morning sacrament until the middle of the night.” She paced the bare floor, her soft boots sounding against the tile as though she walked through grass. “I do not see them.”

Tsecha leaned against the table in a most unseemly way, crossing his arms over his chest and his legs at the ankle, a cramped humanish posture. “My Lucien currently gathers proof. Evidence. When he possesses sufficient, he will go to his dominants, and they will come to you.”

“And you must remain here as he gathers this proof, for he will work with you and you only.” Shai raised her hands above her head, a plea to the gods. “I understand you, Tsecha, as no one else does. You have constructed a reason to remain here when Temple has ordered you back to the worldskein.” She stopped in place and lowered her arms to her sides. “It has therefore fallen to me to enact the wishes of Temple as best I can, and to do this as I determine how much of your story is truth and how much the invention of your spying humanish.”

Elon moved into the shaft of sunlight that streamed through the window, closing her eyes for a moment as she took what she could of its sickly warmth. “I most fear, nìaRauta, that very little of what Pascal says may be invented. The humanish who have trespassed on these grounds know our systems. Given the ways in which we protect such information, they could only have learned such through the spying methods the Service uses to monitor that which we do.”

Shai turned and looked her near enough in the eye as to be as unseemly. “You agree with Tsecha, Elon?” She folded her arms and tucked her hands within the sleeves of her overrobe. “I struggle to recall when last such occurred.” She stood most still. “What state our defenses, then?”

Elon pressed her hands around the stone, drawing the last
edges of pain from bones long healed, wondering how much pressure she would need to apply to break them once more. “We may increase lake patrols. We may increase our guards. We may also employ robotic devices as free-float monitors, setting them at our borders. In whatever instance, I most fear, the humanish will know that we have increased our surveillance, and while the lake patrols and guards are allowed by treaty, the devices are not, for humanish fear we would use them to observe that which they do.” She relaxed her grip on the stone. “Shall I do as I am allowed, nìaRauta?” she asked Shai. “Or shall I do as I must?”

“Increased patrols may draw fire. We want no more dead.” Tsecha still stood against the table, his only movement to straighten his legs, then recross them. “Pink grenades disable weaponry and systems even as they leave the humanish unharmed. Even if the variety we have here now is not fully safe for idomeni systems, such is better than live fire, for such is one thing we cannot take back.”

Shai walked to the sculpture that Tsecha had lately attended. “The pink, Tsecha, is even less allowed by treaty than robotic patrols.” She raised the damp drapery that covered it, then set it aside and began to work the clay that Tsecha had recently smoothed. “I do not, I most believe, need to tell you of the protests we would hear if such drifted beyond the boundaries of the embassy. Any object containing a bioarray would be disabled, any system touched would be disrupted or destroyed. Li Cao would, as humanish say, never let me forget.” Unlike Tsecha, she seemed to savor the feel of the clay—her shoulders slowly uncurved as she worked her hands into the mass. “That being understood, I say to you, Elon, that we should enable the pink systems, for as much as I disdain agreement with the Haárin who leans against the table in an unseemly humanish manner, I cannot help but agree that dead humanish would do us great harm.”

“Yes, níaRauta.” Elon returned to the table and replaced the stone, taking care to avoid Tsecha's gaze, to avoid drawing too close. “I will begin such today.”

“And the challenge, Shai?” Tsecha stood away from the table and let his arms fall to his sides. More humanish deadness.

“That must continue.” Shai turned to him, her hands coated to the wrists in drying clay. “Pascal spends much time at your enclave, Tsecha. He comes here most often as well, and watches us as though he wishes to learn. Thus and so—we both know and truly that one cannot learn completely of idomeni until one learns challenge, and has fought in the circle. Let Pascal learn such then. I am most sure that Dathim will teach him.”

“Shai.”
Tsecha's shoulders rounded so that he had to tilt his head to his shoulder to look at her. “You do not know what you do.”

“I know exactly.” Shai turned from him back to her sculpture. “You see to your enclave, Tsecha. You are indeed needed here, I most fear—though Temple may not wait forever to deal with you as they would, I may convince them to wait a short time.” She gestured to Elon. “You, Elon—see to this place. In any way you deem fit, and truly.” She plunged her hands back into the clay, and worked it so the muscles of her forearms tensed, accenting her
à lérine
scars. “I most relish the upset this challenge has inflicted upon the Service. Each day we receive messages from Diplomatic, the Judge Advocate. Even their Medical dominants wonder over how an emotional augment such as Pascal may behave in the circle.” She nodded in an annoyingly humanish manner. “Disruption is a great thing, and truly.”

Tsecha strode to the door, his back still bowed. “You grow disordered, Shai.”

“I grow tired of trespass and sacrilege. In exchange, I request only a little humanish blood.” Shai bared her teeth. “See to the arming of the pink, Elon.”

“Yes, nìaRauta.” Elon followed Tsecha to the door, pausing at the entry to allow him time to depart. She did not wish to encounter him alone in any hallway. He watched her as he had at Temple when he suspected her anger, and knew that a
further irritation on his part would spur her to an eruption. “No, Tsecha,” she uttered aloud as she walked the corridors to her rooms. She could not betray her thoughts to him now—such would wait until a time that he did not suspect. Only then would he know, when it would be too late for him to react. Then she would rejoice in his pain.

 

Elon took mid-afternoon sacrament, her mind as jumbled as the half-leafed branches she had driven through when she and Ghos had chased the humanish skimmer. Afterward she sought to rest. But her thoughts still raced. Her skin tingled as though stung by thorns.

She rose, laved, then donned the rougher clothes she wore to labor in the damned cold outside, a brown coverall and boots. She departed the embassy and stalked the outbuildings, moving from utility dome to greenhouse to guard bunker, receiving status reports and giving orders, as all the while her limbs moved as leaden and she ached to the pit of her soul.