Contact Imminent (38 page)

Then his head came up. “Is Jani there? Tell her that I miss her. In ways I can't begin to express.” His look grew weighty. “And in ways I can express quite well. Tell her I
love her.” He sighed. “So long, Val. We will talk in person, as soon as we can.” The image stilled, then faded. The display darkened.

Val remained motionless, even as the lights came up, fingers laced around the empty glass. “He loves you,” he said finally, setting the glass down with a clatter, then boosting to his feet and leaving the room.

 

Jani found Val in a chair by the window, his head in his hands. He looked up when he heard her approach. His cheeks were flushed, either from alcohol or because he fought back anger, or maybe a combination of both.

“Why didn't you tell me?” His voice emerged rough, as though his throat ached. “You knew. You knew!”

Jani walked to the window. “I believed that it should come from him. You two have been friends for so long…I thought he'd tell you in the way he felt best.” Out of seeming nowhere, rain had come. Drops spattered the window, then tracked downward like tears. “If it helps at all, he didn't tell me, either. Not until after he'd started. He wanted to surprise me. Boy, did he ever.”

A trace of a smile crossed Val's face. “How did Eamon take it?”

“Outraged that John had lowered himself to research subject. Scared, in case someone decided to arrest him. The usual Eamonesque self-interest.”

“I hate to break this to you, but I can see his point.” Val scrubbed a hand through his hair and sat up. “Once this news gets out, Neoclona is going to quake to its core.”

“Don't you think you're exaggerating a little?”

“Do you think Earth's ready for a human-idomeni hybrid heading up the largest single business entity in the Commonwealth? Especially after what happened today?” Val stood and started to pace. “It's going to take every arm I can twist to keep Li Cao and friends from stripping John of everything he owns.” His pace quickened. “He's already talked to the lawyers, which means they're working on it, I
hope. Not that it will matter much when your anti-idomeni friends start bombing our facilities.” He stopped in front of Jani, his face set with a sternness that wasn't entirely an act. “You do like to complicate a man's life, don't you?” He reached out and touched her arm. “Then there's the fact…” He raised his hand to the line of her jaw. “Not to sound like a whiner, but do you have any idea how lonely I feel right now?”

Jani looked into Val's hazel eyes, glassy with pent-up anguish. She reached for him and pulled him close—he held her as though she was the last person he would ever embrace, and released her reluctantly.

“When do you think you'll be leaving?” he asked.

Jani shook her head. “Depending on when I get in to see Shai and Cao, sometime in the next few days. Assuming I'm not arrested or shot in the street by then.”

Val turned away from her, staking out his own place at the window. “Back in Rauta Shèràa, John used to refer to the two of you as Pygmalion and Galatea. The sculptor who carved a woman so beautiful he begged the gods to give her life. In the official story they answer his prayers. One day, she steps down from the pedestal into his arms.” He turned to her. “You've given the story a new ending. In this one, Galatea lifts up Pygmalion to join her.” His eyes widened. “And how the gods will react, one cannot begin to imagine.”

 

Jani left Val in the sitting room and set out to find a spot in the vast penthouse where she could find refuge, at least for a little while. After a search, she came upon a small bedroom decorated in the same blues and corals as her room in Thalassa. She hunted through drawers until she found a sheet of parchment and a stylus. Then she sat at the narrow desk and composed a letter to Prime Minister Cao.
I am not political…unless I have to be.
She affixed her signature to the bottom, tucked the missive into a documents pouch, then summoned one of Val's admins and asked them to deliver it. That task completed, she walked to the narrow window, took
in the view of the rainswept lake, and tried to imagine bare rock cliffs, the palms, and the sun.

“You're really leaving?”

Jani turned to find Lucien standing in the doorway, looked into a face drawn with pain and exhaustion, eyes deadened by a devil's marriage of nature and technology. “I prefer to call it, ‘going home.'”

“What about me?” He stepped inside far enough for the door to sweep closed. “If you leave, what happens?”

“At the rate you're going, you may find yourself with a place here, if only as a cook.” Jani set her hand on the sill. The wood was coated white, a blued shade that brought out the yellow in her skin by contrast. “We both knew it would come to this eventually. You're incapable of love, and I'm incapable of loving you. We…enjoyed one another. Took what the other offered. It's the sort of thing that's nice while it lasts, but it never lasts. Not for long enough.”

Lucien cocked his head to one side, as though he couldn't hear her, or didn't understand what he heard. He walked to her, let his hands slip down her arms until he held her hands in his, and traced his fingers over hers.

Then he unfastened the cuff of her right sleeve and pushed it to her elbow, revealing the long, wealed scar she'd inflicted upon herself at Thalassa. “Tsecha told me about this.” He ran the edge of his thumb from one end of the scar to the other and back again. “He said you always inflict the worst wounds upon yourself.” He rolled up his right sleeve. “I could argue that.” Slipping his thumbnail beneath the edges of the gauze, he peeled it away, revealing the fresh wounds that crisscrossed his forearm, some scabbed, some glistening as though fresh. “My first time. It's been a while since I could say that about anything.”

He took Jani's right arm in his left hand, cradling it near the elbow. Then he took his right arm and rested it atop hers so their scars overlaid.

Jani flinched as the warmth of his blood touched her skin, felt his grip tighten to keep her close.

“You lead, I follow. You show the way, I walk in your footsteps. That's the way it is.” He looked over her shoulder, his eyes locked on some middle distance. “Today, you acted as my second. You backed me up. You warned me when Ghos tried to strike. You were there.” His eyes met hers, unfocused. Then he looked down at their arms. “I don't remember my dreams. Everyone dreams, you dream or you go mad. Well, I don't remember mine.” He shook his head slowly, then he stilled. “After takedowns, something disconnects for a while. I come the closest to feeling like I'm in an imagined place.” His voice had fallen to a murmur. “When I arrived here this afternoon, I entered through the garage. It was dark. I walked to the foot of that short flight of stairs and looked up into the darkness. My sightline closed in—all I could see was a long, empty tunnel of black. And I knew there was no one at the other end. I was completely alone, and I knew it. I always would be, and I knew that, too.” He looked at her again, eyes no longer dead but clouded by something that for him marked a place worse than any he had ever been. “That's the way I feel now.”

Jani reached up with her free hand and touched Lucien's face.
Liar
. She brushed her fingers over his lips.
Broken boy, who'll say anything to get what he needs
. Hers to see through to the end, because no one else could. “You'll never be alone as long as I'm alive.”

“And you're going to live a good, long time, right?” Lucien's face brightened with a smile. You had to look hard to see that it didn't reach his eyes. “Hybrids are supposed to live a long time. That means I will, too.” He rested his head on her shoulder, his skin hot as fever. “Although doing what, I have no idea. I always assumed I'd make it to full colonel. Find some general who needed a second right hand, put in my twenty years—”

“Then retire to the country and keep bees?” Jani tried to edge her arm away from Lucien's, stopping when he raised his head to look at her.

“Retire with you.” The deadness had left his eyes, replaced by the usual cold, jewel light.

This time, Jani couldn't hold back. “Liar.”

“If it makes you feel better to think that,” Lucien said as he kissed her.

 

Jani lay atop the bed as Lucien undressed her—when she reached for his shirt, he pushed her hands away. This was his night to manage, his to prove she needed him as much as he needed her, no matter how she tried to deny it. She could feel it in the way he held her, the way he concentrated on every part of her as though no one else had ever entered this strange land before and only he knew the way. She sensed his desperation, tried to slow him, and felt his need overpower them both. She realized then that he was trying to change her mind, trying to convince her to stay in the only way he could, and told herself that if she was focused enough to think about it at a time like this, he had lost whatever hold he had on her, and their only connection now was the hold she had on him.

Then his hair caught the light, the pale washed gold of it, and she saw John's sheared head and heard his laugh. Felt his wiry weight on top of her and the insistent rhythm inside her, and closed her eyes, and used that sweetest memory to guide her home.

 

She slept. She dreamed. Unlike Lucien, she remembered. The point of a blade. A charred smile.

“Jani. Jani, wake up.”

She opened her eyes to find Lucien leaning over her, steaming cup of coffee in hand.

“The PM's aide called. She's sending a skimmer. It will be here in thirty minutes. You need to get out of bed, shower, and dress. I've laid out clothes. I'm going to the kitchen to make breakfast. Val says to tell you he's got his fingers crossed.”

Jani took the cup and struggled into a sitting position. “Do I look that helpless that I need step by step instructions?”

Lucien folded down the bedclothes. “You look like I do. We need downtime, and we won't get it.” He headed for the door. “If you're not dressed and in the kitchen in fifteen minutes, I'm sending in Val.”

Jani watched him leave. It broke through the daze that he'd donned his dress blue-greys.

She stumbled out of bed and made for the bathroom, cup in hand.

Prime Minister Li Cao's Family estate cut an enviable swath through the Bluffs. Bordered on one side by the lake and on the other three sides by ravine-sliced woodland, it rolled for square kilometer after square kilometer.

The house itself lacked the immensity of the land that surrounded it. A single story built of stone and wood, flat expanses and arches in grey and brown. A house built for the needs of those who lived there, not to impress those who didn't.

Jani followed Cao's aide down a long white hallway as stripped-down as a Vynshàrau corridor, capped at the end by a set of hinged double doors. The aide turned the knob on one side and pushed the panel open, revealing a long, narrow sunroom framed by glass and wood beams. Jani took a deep breath and stepped inside.

The Prime Minister stood at the far end of the room, wearing a floor-length skirt and pullover in the signature cream color of her ministry. “Good morning.” She held a cup by its underside like a bowl. “I trust you have recovered from yesterday's…episode.” The contents of the cup steamed—she held the vessel to her nose to sniff, but didn't drink.

“I am quite well, Your Excellency. Thank you for inquir
ing.” Jani paused just inside the doorway, shifting her weight from real leg to animandroid. She hadn't yet adjusted to her new limb's quirks, and she didn't want to risk a stumble at such a delicate time.

“I admit that I am not sure what to call you.” Cao smiled. “Jani or Kilian or Kièrshia. To which name are you answering today?”

Jani walked slowly to the middle of the room. Lucien had chosen a trouser suit in dark green that he always said matched her eyes—she felt like a tree compared to the more diminutive Cao. “Jani or Kilian, Your Excellency, if you don't mind. You're mangling Kièrshia.”

Cao had been ferrying the cup-bowl to her nose for another sniff—it stopped in mid-transit. “You never change. Even when you have no room to maneuver, that neck doesn't bend, does it? Kilian?” She walked toward the far windowed wall, where a pair of chairs bracketed a low, round table. “However, in this particular instance, you do have some room. But you knew that, didn't you?” She gestured for Jani to join her. “I decided it would be better if we discussed this matter in private.” She sat, the cup still cradled in her hand. “Shai becomes too difficult to deal with when you're present—you bring out her stubbornness. As for ní Tsecha…” She shook her head. “I can only take so much torment with my morning tea. Even without you, he's problem enough. Many thought his outcast would eliminate his powerbase, and it did to a point. He lost the bornsect, but they don't count for much anymore next to the Haárin, do they, and he hasn't lost a one of them.” She graced Jani with a look of quiet accusation. “You made sure of that.” She sat back, and once more held the cup to her nose. “Jasmine. The scent reminds me that summer will come, even though now it is still too cold to enjoy my garden. Tell me about Thalassa.”

Read Niall's report
. Jani swallowed that response and counted a long pause. When the aide returned with a beverage tray, she asked for coffee, and remained silent until the young woman prepared her cup and departed. “Thalassa is a com
munity of fifty-seven hybrids.”
Fifty-nine, after John and I settle in
. “The number is fairly equally distributed between those who were Haárin originally and those who were—”

“I know all that.” Cao reached into a pocket in her skirt and removed a data wafer. “Courtesy of Niall Pierce, whose…regard for you tended to color some of his more politically significant conclusions.” She paused to drink, taking a long draught that betrayed how much she needed the energy and the comfort the tea provided. “Let me rephrase the question. Tell me about Thalassa's influence.”

“That's a more difficult quantity to define at present.” Jani looked through the window to the garden beyond, arrangements of stone set amid hybrid shrubs blooming yellow and orange.
If I make us appear too strong, she'll hold back whatever she is offering out of fear, and if I make us appear too weak, she'll hold back because there's no need to give anything up
. “We are the physical manifestation of ní Tsecha's beliefs. There is a fervor about the place you could describe as religious.” She flashed back to the day she met Gisa in the circle, and the sight of cloths dipped in her blood. “Our official status at the moment is as a subsidiary offshoot of the Elyan Haárin, who already possess a formidable power base in their own right. We are a responsibility to them more than an asset at this point.”

“You say subsidiary, not suborn.”

You would catch that, wouldn't you?
“When I left Thalassa, Your Excellency, we were still laying down plumbing in the houses. We are still finding our place.”

“Which means you are open to influence, suasion, lobbying, and all the other sins that politics is heir to?” Cao concentrated on the garden view as well. “Or that you are waiting to see which way the wind blows.” She glanced at Jani out of the corner of her eye. “You've learned to keep your mouth shut at least part of the time, Kilian. Yet another thing for the rest of us to worry about.”

Jani finished her coffee and set down the cup. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Your Excellency.”

“Of course you don't.” Cao sighed. “The bornsect have once more been shaken by life outside their worldskein, and like an injured crab into its shell, they will retreat. The word came today, from Shai, the embassy to be razed, and the enclave as well. They could extract so much more from us if they cared to, but they have lost their resolve. I doubt seriously that they will emerge again under the current regime.”

“Cèel will have to if he wants to keep open any lines of communication with the colonial Haárin.”

“Cèel, for all his talk of modernity, is still too much of an ideologue. He will die before he changes. I expect another bornsect to ascend to
rau
before too long, as I'm sure you do.” Cao ran a finger along the rim of her cup. “I hear other names bandied about by my idomeni-watchers. Doches, the Oà's Chief Propitiator. The Pathen dominant, Aolun. Do either of them strike a responsive chord?”

“I have heard both names mentioned, Your Excellency, but I don't know enough about either to hazard a guess.”

“Indeed.” Cao tapped an enameled fingernail against the arm of her chair. “John Shroud. Yet another unknown quantity. If I could toss both him and Eamon DeVries into a Luna prison and lose the code, I would do so and gladly.” Her tone hardened. “He's backing you financially. Shroud.”

“The houses in which the hybrids live as well as the surrounding property are part of Eamon DeVries's personal holdings. John didn't know what Eamon had done until he arrived on site almost two months ago.”

“But he didn't respond by kicking DeVries out of Neoclona, as their contract demands, and evicting the hybrids, did he? DeVries is still a member of Neoclona, and the hybrids live there still.” Cao's voice held petulance, as though she considered his decision a personal affront. “Why did he decide to hybridize?”

Jani smiled—she couldn't help herself. “He loves me.” She looked up to find Cao regarding her with narrow-eyed annoyance, and felt the heat flood her face.

“Love is a marvelous thing, and in and of itself, not as complicating an issue as one might think. Adjustments can be made regarding love.” Cao set her cup down, then stood and walked to the window. “It's the money and power that one or the other parties brings to the table that confound matters. John Shroud's personal fortune dwarfs the Gross Domestic Product of any number of colonies. If he chooses to use it in support of the Thalassans, and through them the Elyan Haárin, he will upset the balance of power for the entire Outer Circle.”

“The balance of power is already upset. The Outer Circle Haárin control transportation and shipping for the region. At this point, John's money doesn't make a great deal of difference.”

“At this point.” Cao placed a hand on the window. “The medical aspects of the issue also concern me. The control of Neoclona—”

“You need to discuss that with Val Parini.”

“He has scheduled an appointment for this afternoon.” The hand dropped. “I had hoped it a social call, but I fear now it will be a negotiating session.” Cao remained at the window, gaze fixed on a trio of yard workers digging around the browned skeleton of a shrub.

“The pressing issue at the moment is keeping the Outer Circle Haárin settled.” Jani felt her idomeni anger rise. She was hungry and tired. She missed John with a physical ache, and the half-emerged buds in the trees outside the window would emerge into full leaf by the time she saw him again. “The accompanying issues are distance, perceived reliability of the native population, and the military and financial clubs you can wield. At this point, neither you nor Cèel have all those issues weighted in your favor. Therefore, you have to deal.”

Cao's shoulders shook in soundless mirth. “The Kilian Tongue of Lead wins out after all.” She stilled. “This aborted challenge-cum-murder involving Captain Pascal and the security suborn, Ghos—it complicates matters.”

“Ghos and his dominant Elon lowered the embassy defenses to permit attack. Humans died as a result.” Jani tried to project a calm she didn't feel. “I've seen the ‘Vee reports. Shai has no recourse where that's concerned.”

“Except ideology, which is the one great unknown.” Cao tapped the window one last time, then returned to her seat. “If the Outer Circle Haárin are placated, what can they offer in return?”

“I cannot speak for them. The Thalassan hybrids are beholden to the Elyan Haárin for protection; in turn, we owe them obedience
to a point
. I can speak
to
them regarding matters of mutual interest.” Jani looked out toward the garden—the workers had hacked down the shrub with cutters in preparation for digging out the root remains. “We have the right to protect ourselves—that is paramount. But I can pledge that I will do my utmost to prevent the Elyan Haárin from taking aggressive actions against the humanish colonists.”

Cao's voice perked. “Aggressive, militarily speaking? Politically? Economically?”

“Militarily. Politically.”

“In other words, you won't persuade the Elyan Haárin away from my docks?”

“They are not your docks, Cao. Your representatives signed contracts in your name. We've dealt with the matter of Sìah Haárin and contracts before—do you really want to revisit such?”

Cao's brow arched—her expression turned thoughtful. “Your speech changes when you become emotional. It becomes harsher, more idomeni-like. I also hear Shai's stubbornness. Is it a Vynshàrau trait, I wonder?” She sat forward, hands folded. The light from the window highlighted the fine lines that grooved the corners of her eyes. When she first took office, the power of the Commonwealth seemed bound to rise ever higher. Now, she seemed to be contemplating the opposite trajectory. “I will lend my support to your request that ní Tsecha Egri and the other Chicago Haárin be allowed to resettle on Elyas.” She reached into a pocket hidden in the folds of
her skirt, and removed Jani's letter, setting it on the table in front of her. “I cannot guarantee that Shai will agree, but she has shown herself more willing to listen to the hard realities than has Cèel.” She regarded her hands, heavy with rings. “You should leave tomorrow, I think. That will most likely force Shai to acquiesce to the decision, then explain it to Cèel. She works better under pressure.”

Jani waited for Cao to say more, but the woman simply poured herself another cup of tea.
That's it?
She wondered at what they had discussed, and what little had been decided. So what was the point of the exercise? To feel her out? Impress upon her the possibility of alliance? Roust her out of bed in the early morning?

I got what I wanted
. Barring any exercise in stubbornness on Shai's part.
Maybe I shouldn't complain too loudly
.

Then she realized the silence. Like suborns of every species, she knew a dismissal when she didn't hear it. “Thank you, Your Excellency.” She rose and headed for the door.

Cao remained seated, her gaze fixed on the workers. “Farewell, Captain Jani Moragh Kilian. Kièrshia nìaRauta Haárin. Tsecha vo Kièrshia. Tsecha's toxin come to life, to plague us forever.” She paused to hold the cup to her nose. “We will meet again, I am sure. Across one bargaining table or another.”

Jani left the room to find a different aide waiting to escort her to the skimmer. The ride back to Val's seemed shorter than had the drive to Cao's house, as was usual with those sorts of visits. When the vehicle drifted to a stop in front of Val's building, Lucien clipped down the steps to meet her.

“We leave tomorrow,” she said as soon as they moved out of earshot of the driver.

The barest shadow crossed his perfect face. “I'll alert the enclave.”

 

Micah lay still, listening for any sounds from the hallway outside. When anyone looked through the narrow window, he faked sleep, or talked to himself
with intent
, as though he ac
tually held a conversation with voices in his head.
This isn't going to work forever
. Eventually, they'd drag him out of bed and subject him to a neuroscan. He knew they suspected trauma disorder, along with a laundry list of other problems. He knew that if he told them that he felt sure someone wanted to kill him, they'd add that problem to the list.

“I've seen people in the hall, you understand. Men, mostly, although they sent a woman this morning who could have been Chrivet's twin.” He wished he'd had the wit to demand Chrivet tell him her real name before he shot her. He would have liked to know, to compare it with that of the woman who had stood outside his door, staring at him through the window until the day nurse spooked her.