Matriarch (29 page)

“Well, then we both know why we're here, then. Let's cut the crap and concentrate on being productive.”

They looked at one another in silence—both sound and light—and then Lindsay dropped her head. It was odd to watch someone's body language under water; it was as if they were moving in air, but slowed down and exaggerated.

“You're right,” she said. “I
do
want to see David's grave, if there's anything left of it.”

“The nanites were probably confined to the area within the bioscreen. It'll still be there, probably.” What was it like to lose a kid? Rayat looked for the worst experience he
could recall, his greatest pain, and tried to superimpose his grandfather's death on the situation.
Think how she thinks. Feel how she feels.
That was how you got to know a target and deal with them, by thinking as they did. Lindsay needed to feel David's death wasn't her fault. “If you'd had a termination, you'd feel just as bad. At least you gave him a chance.”

“Well, you seem to be making progress with Keet. I'll leave you to get around to the subject of how we visit Constantine.”

We.

So far, so good. She needed support. Damn, sometimes he felt he did, too. He thought of patting her on the shoulder but reconsidered, and went back to sit with Keet and exchange illuminated words while the other bezeri went through the stack of
azin
shell records.

One of them had two sheets of shell and a collection of small pots the size of cups. She coated one slice of shell with something sticky, spread from one tentacle, and then sprinkled sand in very fine lines with another arm. As Rayat watched, a sand image grew before his eyes.

So that's how they do it.

The bezeri's precision astonished him. But this was how they had written in ancient times, and this one still had the skill. She was making a record; maybe she was tallying the retrieved maps, listing them. Or maybe she was recording how alien air-breathers came to the Dry Above and destroyed them and all hope.

Rayat didn't want to ask. He just watched, mesmerized by seeing an intelligent squid create a document as a child might have glued glitter to a greetings card. When the shell sheet was covered in symbols and color, the bezeri wiped the sticky substance around the edge of the shell and pressed the two layers tight together.

Rayat still thought the price had to be paid, but he genuinely regretted wiping out a species like this one. He withdrew to the rocks to collect food, and wondered again
why there were no other large animals in this part of the ocean.

F'nar, Wess'ej: Nevyan's home

Nevyan's library had become Eddie's edit suite.

It was quiet, it had a comms screen set in the wall, and she'd let him keep a table and chair in there. The jury-rigged furniture was square-built and very unwess'har, but made out of old vegetable crates he'd hammered together, so it was recycled and therefore
admirable
according to Giyadas.

She was very pleased to have him back. She sat with him for hours, simply absorbing whatever it was she absorbed to be able to stun him with her perception.

It was a comfortable den; with the lighting dimmed, and his various screens, cams and keyboards spread out, it felt just like editing footage back home. All he needed was a big mug of coffee and a stack of pizza and he could have forgotten he was 150 trillion miles from Earth. When the marines from the detachment dropped in for a chat, sometimes with beer, the place almost had a real buzz. He missed working in an office. You could work from anywhere in the galaxy, and he'd proved it, but he was one of those people who liked a crowd around him. There was only so much monkey that technology could take out of you.

He imagined a pizza and wondered how he was going to cut the rushes from Esganikan's attempt at diplomacy into something fresh enough to tempt a jaded news editor's palate.

“Eddie.” Giyadas stood at his elbow. “Eddie, I have something for you.”

“Pizza, doll? With extra mozzarella?”

“That's cheese.”

“Yes.”

“Coagulated excretions.”

“Don't ever get a job waiting on tables, will you? You're not cut out for it.” He gave her a hug and she seemed not to mind. “What is it, then?”

She reached forward and touched the screen to activate another ITX feed. “Esganikan sends this. She says she's sorry you weren't there and she hopes this is enough.” Eddie was used to Eqbas recordings now. He tried to work out the orientation of the static image and decided it was an aerial view and needed rotating 90 degrees right. He tapped the icons on the control strip and the image flipped and began to play.

“Oh shit,” he said.

It was the ten seconds of perfectly steady on-board footage from what had to be a fighter's cockpit that most disturbed him. It showed nothing graphic. The craft was making a straight run down a road flanked by typical isenj high-rises, solid and continuous as canyon walls, and the dark river flowing between them resolved into masses of isenj troops. But although he didn't see any missile strike in those ten seconds, his memory and imagination filled the gaps in advance. He knew what was coming.

The fact that isenj blood was straw-yellow plasma and their body parts were hard to recognize in the debris didn't save him from that jolt when the unidentifiable image he was looking at snapped suddenly into something called
person.
He felt that same awful combination of revulsion and reluctance to look away. For a second, he saw Minister Ual's thin blood on his clothes again. The columns of troops and vehicles had nowhere to run: they couldn't even turn. Had the footage been of a human war, BBChan would never have transmitted it.

Giyadas said nothing. It crossed Eddie's mind several minutes too late that a kid shouldn't see that kind of footage, but she was wess'har. They had strong stomachs.

He had one of those once, too.

“Your bastard news editor won't be angry with you now,” said Giyadas primly. Oh yes, she absorbed
everything
he said. “You missed nothing.”

He looked down at her, certain he'd protect her like she was his own, and hoped he'd never see her vague resemblance to an Eqbas.

“No,” he said. “You got it all.”

Eqbas ship 886-001-005-6; in detached fleet mode, Northern Assembly airspace south of Jejeno

President Pirb repeated his call to arms as the Eqbas fighters pounded his military bases. Esganikan couldn't understand it, but Aitassi translated the audio message that was being relayed across the messaging system in each of Umeh's four landmasses.

“He repeats his plea for other nations to commit forces to attacking Wess'ej and reclaiming Bezer'ej.” One of her clan wandered onto the bridge and gave her a bowl of fried fruits: it had been a long watch. “I wonder if he knows his range and limits.”

“In which order of priority?”

“It varies each time he repeats it. Either way, it's academic.”

The
gethes
had got it right with mass media. Esganikan wished for an isenj version of Eddie, with news programming she could tap into for the state of play across Umeh quickly and easily. Isenj preferred their complex network of personal links, only some of which bothered to use images. The nearest they had to media was the collective gossip of loosely defined groups.

“Where exactly does Umeh space begin?” asked Hayin.

“Where I say it does.” Esganikan stood with her hands clasped in front of her. She found herself trying Shan's resting stance with hands on hips, but it was uncomfortable for wess'har shoulders. “No isenj vessel needs to go beyond Tasir Var. Beyond that, if they head towards Wess'ej space, open fire. Tell them so. They're confined.”

It wasn't
if.
It was
when.
She knew it; isenj liked gestures.

Joluti kept an eye on the displays that monitored the locations of the detached ship components. A squadron of fighters was formed in the hangar, ready to intercept isenj long-range craft heading off-world, and a small shuttle was inbound from Bezer'ej and Tasir Var. It carried a tree.

“How many variants of the pathogen was Shapakti able to create?” asked Joluti.

“Seven distinct strains.”

“Guesswork.”

“Without a complete genome record, how can we know who lives where? Isenj must interbreed to some extent.”

“They do realize they'll have to accept the risk of deaths among their own people, don't they?”

“I've explained that to them.”

“A sad fate for the civilization that spread an entangled photon network.” Joluti reached out and grabbed a chunk of vegetable from Aitassi's bowl. “To be reduced to this.”

“It must be hard to live with faded glory when your ancestors' memories are part of you. I imagine it makes for bitter personalities.”

“And delusional ones, perhaps.”

“Why?”

“In their minds—in their genetic memory—they're still a powerful imperial army that took on the wess'har and almost won. In the flesh, they don't appear to have had any substantial military experience in many generations.”

It was a telling comment. The military capacity of Umeh surprised Esganikan by its inadequacy. Isenj did something
Eddie called “talking a good game”: their threats were more impressive than their actions. She realized she was fighting the equivalent of police and civil emergency teams on Earth. Isenj weren't a particularly aggressive species, and the Northern Assembly didn't even have a specific minister with sole responsibility for defense, as the
gethes
always did.

And the isenj were no longer the galactic engineers who built and deployed the communications networks that the
gethes
called ITX: they didn't even have the resources to maintain them across light years now. The glory days of their civilization were over, eroded by environmental pressures and the increasing need to manage every aspect of their climate. They were already long in decline. But—like their faith in their military prowess—their genetic memories were those of a colonial power who believed its engineering skills could solve any problem. That illusion was probably the basis of their undoing.

If Eddie Michallat wanted to demonstrate to Earth what would happen to it if it didn't mend its ways, it wasn't Eqbas military strength he needed to show: it was the decline of the isenj themselves.

Joluti took his
virin
and stared into its layers. “ITX was superior to our technology in many ways at the time. They must feel bitter to think we benefited so much from it.”

“Knowledge can never be owned for long.”

“Eddie thinks we're too open about our military capacity,” said Aitassi.

“Then perhaps he should stop reporting on it, if it troubles him.”

“What if the
gethes
were to acquire countermeasures?”

Esganikan's confidence was based on the knowledge that Earth's technology was a civilization's history behind her own. They probably knew that too. Perhaps they were hoping that if they tried to repel the Eqbas task force rather than cooperate, then a computer virus, terrestrial bacteria or even a simple element like water would strike down her
personnel: they seemed to believe these things, or at least fantasize about them in their myths to comfort themselves that they were special and that fate would always spare them.

“It would be a technical advance on an unprecedented scale,” said Esganikan. “But we have the blueprint, as they call it, for nearly all life on their planet, including their own species.” She glanced at a remote surveillance image of the remnant of Tivskur's shattered fleet, half-submerged in its harbor. “And they do not have
ours.
”

The surveillance remotes continued to show space-capable vessels from the Sil and Tivskur continents gathering on Pareg. The build-up was far smaller than she expected, no more than three thousand fighters: a large nation's air force, not a planet's combined forces.

“I never expected them to be so inadequate,” said Joluti. “But even if they had the resources, I doubt if they could use them effectively.”

“I hear the Wess'ej matriarchs never attacked Umeh even at the height of the wars.” Esganikan could imagine their polite, non-interventionist agreement. “And the isenj never targeted Wess'ej.”

“Bezer'ej was always the disputed territory.”

“That explains why they're not equipped for planetary defense.”

“We could destroy most of the aircraft on the ground,” Joluti looked hopeful. “Do I have your permission? There's something distasteful about knowing their inadequacy and waiting for them to make a move that justifies our action. Let's end it now.”

“How long before the shuttle is inboard?”

“Half an hour, no more.”

“Very well. Put the air group on alert.”

Joluti was right. There was something tragic about it. The isenj have been left in peace to decline and die. Esganikan wouldn't have felt uneasy and could have concentrated on planning the Earth mission.

But Par Paral Ual had asked for her help. If one isenj could change, it was worth the fight.

Library, Nevyan's clan home, F'nar

“They either think it's the Second Coming or the end of the world,” said Barencoin. “That's the trouble with aliens visiting Earth. Every dingbat and loony this side of the Black Stump is going to be out in force.”

He slurped his tea and watched the BBChan feed on the ITX with Eddie. Some evangelist group was hailing the Eqbas visit as the beginning of the time of judgment, a wakeup call to repent. The story was buried with the novelty features like water-skiing squirrels and people who set records for eating glass.

Eddie wondered when to show Barencoin the footage from the Eqbas raid.

“Maybe it
is
the end of the world,” said Eddie. “You know the isenj in Jejeno want the Eqbas to give them bioweapons to use against their neighbors, don't you?”

“I lose track of the NBC ordnance these days, mate. There's so much shit around this system.”

“Doesn't it bother you? Tailored biological weapons? Target-by-genome?”

“What, like on Bezer'ej? Courtesy of Eddie Michallat?”

“That's defensive.”

“Oh, that's all right, then.” Barencoin flipped his knife from his belt. “So's this. And I can only use my powers for good. Christ, you fucking civvies. You can't create a weapon and use rules as the safety catch.”

“They'd have acquired isenj DNA in time anyway, without my help.”

“We had no business interfering on Bezer'ej.” Barencoin replaced his knife. “And no business telling aliens how to run their affairs when we can't even run our own.”

“Okay, Mr. fucking Isolationist,” said Eddie. His language
got steadily worse in the company of marines. “We've got more than three hundred people still in Jejeno.”

“Agreed. We should be over there. Just in case.”

“Five marines and a few billion isenj. What do you think it is, Rorke's Drift?”

“Six. And isenj don't have a problem with humans.”

“Collateral damage. They don't
have
to have a problem. And Shan will have something to say about it if you try to get Ade over there.”

“Yeah, I thought she might.” Barencoin looked defocused, as if calculating. “I bet the ladies here could lend us a ground-to-air defense system.”

“Anyway, you lot were fired, remember?”

“That's just technicalities.”

“Could Mar'an'cas cope with just the civvies? That's just over a hundred.”

“What about the naval personnel? Don't blue suits matter?”

“I'm just thinking aloud. By the time we work out how to find enough food for them there could be fighting in Jejeno anyway.”

Barencoin didn't answer. He looked a threat at the best of times, a very big man who never looked clean-shaven however often he used a razor. The news footage absorbed him for a few moments.

“Let's watch the main topics,” he said, and Eddie didn't argue.

However abrasive Barencoin could be, Eddie admired and liked him. He still did the job, fired or not, and took his responsibilities seriously even when stripped of his status and honor. Eddie stifled the reflex that made him want to garrote politicians with rusty razor-wire.

“What do you fancy doing when you get back to Earth?” asked Eddie.

“What, if it's not a smoking pile of slag by then, you mean?”

“Assuming that, yes.”

“I have a Master's in international law and my first degree was politics. I don't fancy doing either for a living.”

“Sorry?”

Eddie's shock must have been visible. Barencoin's jaw clenched a little. “I'm just a mindless grunt right?”

“No, I never—”

“Liar.”

“I just didn't have you down for a lawyer.” But it was true: he really was shocked that Barencoin had an academic background. He'd taken his smartness for rat cunning. “You're a bit…direct.”

“Anyway, being dismissed the service doesn't look great on your application, does it?”

Eddie suspected there'd be a lot of security work for special forces troops with no place to go in about thirty years' time. The FEU forces already had enough trouble keeping their personnel, faced with the lure of better pay outside for the same risk of getting your head shot off, or worse. He had a sudden image of Barencoin in some vile foreign jail and it upset him. He deserved better. They all did.

“I wish I could be some help, Mart.”

“You're not my mum.”

“Media always needs security minders overseas.”

“Well, got time to think, haven't we? Five years to do some distance learning course. Flower arranging, maybe.”

“Want to evaluate some reconnaissance footage for me?”

“Is this like your little job of getting us to snatch Rayat and Neville from the isenj?”

“Not really. I just need to show someone.”

“Okay.”

Eddie loaded the file and leaned back to let Barencoin watch the uncut footage from Esganikan's operation.

The marine scared him. If any of them were capable of random violence, it was him; just like Shan, he had
nasty bastard
written all over him and it would come as no surprise if he punched you in the face from a cold start. He watched the recording with an occasional tilt of the head as the cockpit view skewed, and didn't turn a hair.

“Those things can really move,” he said as it finished. “So, what else do you want to know?”

“Does that disturb you?”

“No. Should it?”

“It got to me.”

“How many conflicts have you covered, mate?”

“Five. Six if you count this.”

“Then you must have spent your time in the hotel bar. Because that's what it's always like. Except they've got better kit than us.
Lots
better.”

“Okay.”

“What do you
think
happens when there's an air strike on ground troops?”

“In a civilian area.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. We've never done that, have we? Jesus, Eddie.”

Barencoin was an elite commando and it was his job to get it done before someone did it to him. Eddie found himself increasingly adrift in a world where physical aggression was part of his own community's rules and not just something he reported in disapproving terms.

“The Eqbas scare me.”

Barencoin snorted. “Esganikan just loves you. You're Eqbas Vorhi's favorite spokesman.”

Spokesman.
Eddie always had a feeling it was true, but he wanted at least to be in denial rather than suppressing the instinct to blush and nod. Mart was definitely far from a grunt.

“I'm editing this to file later.”

“Have you looked at the situation developing back home?”

“I'll say. On the hour, usually.”

“The Aussies and the Canadians can't wait to gang up on the FEU. The African Assembly's pitching in and nobody knows what the Sinostates are going to do. The veggies are fighting the meat-eaters. Somehow, I don't think they'll notice
Attack of the Parrot Woman.
”