The Summer Queen (127 page)

Vhanu looked at her, his lips twitching, for a long moment.
He muttered something in Sandhi, finally, glancing away. She translated the
sour words: barbarian whore.

In Sandhi, she said, “Would you prefer to speak your own language,
Commander Vhanu? I understand it fairly well.”

He looked back at her; the scattering of pale freckles
across his brown face flushed blood-red. He took a deep breath. “I think there
is very little left for us to say, in any language, Lady,” he answered, in
Tiamatan. He began to turn away.

“I want to see him,” Moon said. “You can’t deny me the right
to see him.”

He turned back to her. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. He’s
no longer here.”

She froze. “What?”

“He’s gone.” Vhanu shrugged. “Back to Kharemough, to face
charges before the High Court. If he remained here, there was too much threat
of strife, so I had him deported immediately.”

She felt his satisfaction tighten around her throat, as if
it were his hands. “You mean,” she forced the words out, “that there was too
much risk that he was right; that his voice would be heard, and everyone who
heard it would know.”

“Walk softly, Lady,” he repeated, frowning more deeply. He
bowed to her again, with perfect grace. He turned away, opening the door;
stopped, turning back. “By the way,” he said. “I know now that your fanatical
predictions about our decimating the mer population were not only superstitious
rubbish but complete lies. My people tell me that the waters are teeming with
mers. Their numbers are far from depleted.”

“No!” She started forward. “That isn’t the truth, there are
no more mers—Search further, search all the seas; you have the means. The seas
will be empty.”

He shook his head, and his eyes pitied her, as if she were beneath
contempt. He went out the door without answering.

Moon stood motionless in the center of the room, until her
moment of desperate rage passed. She turned back, then, to face Jerusha.

Jerusha sat down again behind her desk, her dark eyes filled
with questions, none of them reassuring. She reached into her pocket for a pack
of iestas, put a handful into her mouth, chewing them to quiet her nerves.

Moon moved to a seat and dropped heavily into it. “BZ can’t
be gone,” she said, studying her hands, which lay in her lap like dying
insects. “How can it have happened? It’s impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible,” Jerusha murmured tonelessly.

“This is.” Moon raised her head. “He had to be here. He was
meant to be. They both were .... We were all in place. And suddenly, just when
we were ready—they’re gone.” She shook her head, feeling as if she had been
beaten, as if she were bleeding inside.

Jerusha looked at her, and Moon saw an expression on the
other woman’s face that she had not seen in years. “Gods,” Jerusha said. “It’s
been speaking to you again, hasn’t it—the sibyl mind? The way it did when you
told me you were going to become Queen.”

She nodded, mute.

“Who is the third person?”

“Reede ... Reede Kullervo.”

Jerusha’s eyes widened; she looked away, frowning. “He works
for the Source.

BZ wanted him picked up ... wanted it done unofficially.
Kitaro was handling it, before she ...” Her gaze came back to Moon. “What
happened?”

Moon told her how it had begun, pulling her raveled thoughts
back together.

“And what were the three of you supposed to do?” Jerusha
asked, when she was finished.

“It—has to do with saving the mers.” Moon shook her head. “But
that’s all I can tell you. Except that they’re the key to something. If that
merkiller Vhanu—” She broke off. “If he only knew what he’s done, not just to
the mers, not just to us, but to himself ....”

Jerusha sighed. “So the Hedge has Gundhalinu hostage, and
the Source has Reede—”

“And Ariele.” She forced the words out.

“Ariele?” Jerusha paled. “Why, by all the gods?”

“She was involved with Reede. I didn’t even know .... The
Source took them both. Because of ... what I know that I can’t tell.” She told
the rest of it, numbed by the words as she spoke them, until finally her voice
held no emotion at all. “They’re all gone .... And I don’t know if any of them
will ever come back.”

Jerusha sat back in her chair and dropped a remote into a
box; looked up again, bleak-eyed. “Is there anything at all that we can do,
right now?”

“Nothing.” Moon shook her head. “Nothing even makes sense to
me, right now.” Her body seemed to have turned to stone as she sat there, until
now it was too heavy, too inert, ever to rise from her seat again. “Nothing
will make any difference.”

Jerusha leaned forward abruptly, and switched on her comm. “Prawer!
In my office. Immediately.”

Inspector Prawer appeared in the doorway bare seconds later.
He saluted. “Ma’am?” He made a brief bow in Moon’s direction; she looked away
from his glance.

“You’re in charge here, until the Commander names a new
Chief Inspector. Have my belongings sent to my ...” she glanced at Moon, “to
the local constabulary headquarters.” Moon looked up, suddenly feeling
something stir inside her that was not another tentacle of despair. “I want my
old job back,” Jerusha said.

“It’s yours.” Moon pushed to her feet, glancing at Prawer,
and back at Jerusha.

Jerusha came around the corner of her desk, tossing Prawer a
packet of keycards. “Here. Tell Commander Vhanu ...” She paused, and spat an
iesta pod into the trash basket. Moon saw Prawer’s mouth twitch. “Tell him ...
he’s mekrittu. Like all his ancestors before him, back to the first.”

Prawer looked disbelief at her. “Gods, I can’t say that to
the Commander—”

“Quote me,” she said. “That’s a direct order.” She
hesitated. “And tell the force that Gundhalinu’s gone.”

“He’s gone?” Prawer repeated, his face going slack. She nodded.
“Yes, Ma’am.” He drew himself up and saluted again. “Consider it done.”

She returned his salute; he passed them, heading toward her
desk, as she walked with Moon toward the door.

Jerusha took a deep breath as they stood outside Police Headquarters
at last. “It feels good to get the stink of that place out of my head.” She
looked behind her at the building entrance, at the sign above it in both
Tiamatan script and Sandhi hieroglyphics.

“What is mekrittu?” Moon asked finally.

Jerusha smiled, the line of her mouth sweet-and-sour. “It’s
the lowest of the lower classes, on Kharemough. It’s like calling a Summer ‘merkiller,’
raised to the tenth.” Her face hardened again. “The only real mistake Gundhalinu
ever made was thinking that tunnel-visioned bigot Vhanu was his equal.” She
looked down, spat out another seed pod, and followed Moon, who was already
moving on toward the alley’s entrance. “Moon, do you want to know what I think?”

“Yes.” Moon kept her own eyes fixed on the way ahead, knowing
that it was her only choice: to keep moving, to keep ahead of the fate that was
closing in on her, trying to bring her down. “Tell me. I need a parallax view.
Every way out I see is blocked by a wall of fire—” She looked up, remembering
Vhanu’s threat, and the fire in the sky that could destroy her world if she
pushed the Hegemony too far.

“Then slow down.” Jerusha’s hand fell on her arm, holding
her back. “Slow down.” Moon slowed, looking at her. “Wait, until we learn more,”
Jerusha said. “BZ has friends—not just here, but also on Kharemough. He could
come back to us on his own ....” But her voice doubted it. Moon remembered the
levels of Survey, the schisms hidden within its seeming unity. “Or if Sparks
comes back with Kullervo and Ariele, Kullervo may be the key ... the fire to
fight fire with.”

“I need water, to put it out forever.” Moon rubbed her arms.
She began to walk again toward the brightness of the Street, feeling her mind
slowly beginning to unlock and function. “Either way, it will be weeks—it could
be months, before we’ll know. And all the while mers will die.” And with every
mer’s death, the sibyl mind would die by inches .... She shook her head. “I
know you’re right; I can only wait and see. But I’m not an empty shell. BZ was
going to run an analysis of data Sparks had developed on the mersong. I can
analyze that data myself.”

“Your systems are interfaced with the Hegemony’s governmental
computer net, aren’t they?” Jerusha asked.

“Yes.” Moon looked over at her. “Why?”

“Martial law. I don’t know what that’s going to do to your access.
Vhanu could restrict your usage, if he wants to make your life difficult. He
can probably monitor anything you do with it, in any case.”

Moon looked away; touched the spines of the trefoil she wore
with wary fingers. “I have access to a far better system than the one in this
city; Vhanu doesn’t control my use of the sibyl net. And I think that I know
now what questions I have to ask it, to get the answers I need. I’m going to
call a session of the Sibyl College, and explain what I can to them about this ...
situation.” Her throat closed over the word. “Jerusha, what will they do to BZ,
if—”

Jerusha glanced at her. “The Hegemony doesn’t have a death
penalty,” she said, looking straight ahead again. “But they have some prisons
that make their occupants wish there was one .... But it won’t be one of those,
for him,” she went on hastily. “He has a lot of influence.”

“He has a lot of enemies, then,” Moon said softly. She
glanced over her shoulder, down Blue Alley. “I’ll get him back. By the Lady and
all their gods ... I’ll make them pay, if it takes me the rest of my life.” She
looked ahead again. “And if I fail, everyone will pay ....”

Jerusha looked at her, and said nothing more.

They reached the alley’s end, where her escort of constables
waited. She informed them of Jerusha’s return; they greeted the news with
smiling nods. “Gives us somebody to talk to the Blues in their own tongue
again, eh?” the constable named Clearwater murmured. “It’s all Sandhi to me,
Commander,” he said to Jerusha, and laughed.

Her own mouth pulled up in a wry smile. She .turned to Moon,
her eyes intent. “Is there anything I can do for you, now that I’m back in your
service, Lady’’ Anything at all—”

Moon hesitated, searching through the images that filled her
mind, searching for one that she could alter. “Yes,” she said finally. “I want
you to arrest Kirard Set Way away s.”

Jerusha started, and then nodded. “I’ll see to it,” she
said. “Immediately. I’ll take Clearwater with me, if that’s all right with you.”

Moon nodded. She held out her hand, and Jerusha shook it, in
the traditional way. “Welcome home.” Moon smiled, at last.

Jerusha made her way to Kirard Set Wayaways’ townhouse,
followed by Clearwater, who didn’t ask any questions although she could see
that he wanted to. She was sure Wayaways was in the city; she had seen him just
yesterday, window-shopping in the Maze.

She knocked on his front door, waited, suddenly seeing in
her mind an unexpected image from the time when Arienrhod had ruled—seeing
Kirard Set Wayaways, as he stood waiting by the Pit, when the winds had still
moaned hungrily; waiting for Police Inspector PalaThion and Sergeant Gundhalinu
with a wind-taming bone whistle in his hand. She still remembered, after all
these years, the smile on his youthful, perfect face as he saw the anxiety on
their own faces; how he had laughed at them behind his eyes, letting the wind
nip their heels as he led them across the span to their audience with the Snow
Queen. She realized suddenly that she wanted to see their positions reversed;
still wanted it, needed it, after all these years.

The door opened. But it was not Kirard Set who greeted her,
it was his wife, Tirady Graymount. Jerusha felt surprise at the depth of her
own disappointment.

“Chief Inspector PalaThion ...” Tirady Graymount murmured,
leaning against the jamb of the open door a little unsteadily. Her pupils
seemed abnormally dilated; Jerusha wondered what kind of drugs she had been
taking. She glanced past Jerusha’s shoulder at the constable, and her sour
expression turned quizzical. “What do you want?”

“I’ve come to arrest your husband, Tirady Graymount,” Jerusha
said.

The woman blinked, as if she were having a hard time processing
the information. “The Hegemony is arresting him?”

“Not the Hegemony.” Jerusha glanced down at the blue uniform
she still wore. She looked up again, and shrugged. “I work for the Queen now.”

“Oh,” Tirady Graymount said, as if that explained
everything. “Well, my husband isn’t home. I’m sorry you missed him ....” She
smiled oddly.

“I don’t suppose you’d have any idea where I can find him?”
Jerusha asked, already anticipating the predictable response.

But Tirady Graymount pushed away from the doorframe, in a
motion like windblown grass. “Why, yes, I do.” She smoothed back her fair,
gray-salted hair. “He’s gone down to Persipone’s—the club. On business,” she
added, and her smile this time was one of surpassing cruelty. “You know where
it is. If you hurry, you’ll catch him there.”

“Thank you for your cooperation.” Jerusha kept the irony and
surprise out of her voice.

“It’s my pleasure,” Tirady Graymount murmured, as they
turned away. “Good day to you.” Her door closed sharply behind them.

Jerusha wasted no time getting to Persipone”s, and few
thoughts along the way on the state of Wayaways’ marriage. She held more than
enough reasons in her own mind why Kirard Set could drive someone to drugs, or
acts of petty revenge.

They entered Persipone’s calculated mouth of darkness, stood
blinking on the threshold, as everyone else did. She felt another odd frisson
as the past whispered through her present like a fever-spirit. Persipong’s Hell
looked exactly as it had looked during Arienrhod’s reign. It was like something
that existed outside of time; appearing, disappearing, reappearing again. Then,
as now, it had been a front for the Source, the drug boss Arienrhod had turned
to when she had tried to commit genocide on the Summers. The Blues had stopped
it—Jerusha had stopped the Source, herself. But somehow the Source had slipped
through their grasp, folded himself up into his own personal singularity and
disappeared.