Contact Imminent (29 page)

“This place!” Wola pushed forward, again jabbing her finger at Jani. “I have heard of this place.” She gestured about. “I have seen. It is anathema!”

Jani slapped the Haárin's hand away. “
It is not your concern!
Ní Tsecha favors this place.”
Well—he will once he knows about it
. “I represent him and I pronounce it sound. It acknowledges ná Feyó as dominant in matters of business, and matters of business are your only concern.” She stopped again to breathe. Inhaling required more effort than it should have. She looked down at her arm to find the bleeding had slowed to seepage. A puddle of red dried at her feet.

“We can finish this later. So says the attending physician.” John maneuvered behind Jani and steered her through the courtyard toward one of the demirooms, holding her elbow with one hand and the back of her coverall with the other as he steered her through the press of the crowd.

When they had cleared the last of the hybrids, he leaned forward. “Pied Piper,” he whispered in her ear.

“Toot toot,” Jani muttered, just as her knees gave way completely.

 

Breathe…breathe…

Jani lay on the couch and concentrated on respiration. John had bundled cushions under her legs to elevate them, and applied a coldpack to the back of her neck. The hollow feeling in her chest remained, though it had lessened. Her right arm felt pressured. She tipped up her head and saw that someone had clamped a transfuser around her elbow—the weight of the thing pulled the wound on her arm, which someone had wrapped with loose gauze. The transfuser display array fluttered, red and blue alphanumerics that flashed at just the right frequency to inspire nausea.

Breathe…

She lay back her head and studied the ceiling. The edges of the tiles shimmered, like tarmac on a hot day.

Breathe…

“Feeling better?”

Jani opened her eyes and found a familiar pale visage regarding her sideways. “I won't be dashing up and down the beach anytime soon.”

“Not for a day or two, at least.” John raised her shoulders, then sat down and lowered her so she rested on his lap. “You nicked a vein. You only lost a little over half a liter, but you lost it fast, which explains your weakness. Just your body's way of telling you to put your feet up.” He plucked one of her curls, then worked his fingers down to her scalp and commenced therapeutic massage. “Then there's your
idomeni nature. Funny how your rages drain you as much as your augmentation did.”

“Hilarious.” Jani yawned. “What's happening out in the land of the fully sanguinated?”

John laughed, sending a pleasant vibration along Jani's shoulders. “Things are bustling. I've ordered everyone to let you rest, otherwise the procession of those wanting to pay their respects would bury you. Wola and friends have departed. Feyó summoned a couple of her suborns to come retrieve them and escort them back to the Elyan enclave. She used the hospital comroom to make the call. Apparently this was seen as some sort of breakthrough in Thalassa-Elyas relations—thought they'd break out the champagne there for a minute.”

“If you think it will help, break it out.” Jani tilted her head so she could look John in the face. “This house of cards needs all the adhesive it can get.”

“Don't underestimate yourself—you always do, you know.” John relocated his attention from the top of Jani's head to the back. “I'll have you know that Bon and Torin spent the last hour tearing strips from old table linens and using them to wipe your blood from the courtyard floor. Those strips have become the souvenir of the moment—everyone I've seen has one tied around their right wrist, including Feyó herself.” He halted his ministrations long enough to allow Jani a peek at his own band of red-stained cloth.

“You're kidding.” Jani reached up and tugged one end of the tie, already stiff with dried blood. “You're not kidding.”

“You are well, ná Kièrshia?” Gisa edged within Jani's sightline. She had changed into one of her usual crisp outfits, a trouser suit in pale blue that darkened her grey eyes to gunmetal. “You do not yet appear yourself.”

“I feel quite fine, ná Gisa.” Apparent ally though the hybrid dominant now was, Jani didn't feel comfortable revealing the extent of her weakness to her. “But my physician compels me to rest, so I must follow his direction.”

“I'm writing
that
down,” John said.

“There is still much to discuss.” Gisa sat in a chair opposite Jani and took care to rest her right hand atop her knee so her strip of blooded cloth was fully exposed. “Details of responsibility. Contingencies. What will happen to us if Feyó loses a challenge—”

Jani held up her hand, then waited for Gisa to lapse into grudging silence. “I'm officially indisposed, and I believe ná Feyó has been battered enough for one day. Tomorrow, ná Gisa, will be time enough. The important thing is that Thalassa now has official standing within the Trade Board, and the cracks in the Outer Circle Haárin's united front have been repaired.” She sniffed the air, as much to annoy the impatient Gisa as to confirm that she really did smell what she thought she smelled. “Food?”

“Mid-evening sacrament is at hand, ná Kièrshia.” Gisa rose, her attention fixed on the transfuser. “You will sit at table, of course.”

“Of course, ná Gisa.” Jani pushed her legs off the couch and let their momentum pull her into a sitting position. “I will join you in a moment.” She nodded acceptance of the female's gesture of esteem, and watched her cut through the darkened room to the bustling courtyard beyond.

“Do you trust her?” John followed Gisa's progress as well, while he scratched at the dried blood that still stained his cheek. “I sure as hell don't.” He turned back to Jani and started disconnecting the transfuser.

“She wants to be Elyan dominant. In a few years, depending on how well Thalassa integrates into the Haárin network and how much the hybrid population grows, she might build sufficient status to have a shot.” Jani straightened her arm and rubbed the reddened crook of her elbow where the transfuser injector had attached itself, gasping as her fatigued shoulder cramped.

“You're more qualified to be dominant than she is,” John said as he brought his viselike grip to bear on Jani's tightened muscles.

“No, thanks. This priest thing has its advantages.” Jani tilted her head to one side and rubbed her cheek against John's hand. “I can do my job without constantly having to worry whether someone's gearing up to knock me off my perch.” She savored a final few moments of John's attention, but just as she made ready to work to her feet, the entry chimes sounded.

“If that's the cheery ná Wola come back because she forgot something, the food odors are going to send her screaming into the rain.” John stood and turned to the door. “Torin's getting it. Kid's a little lightning bolt—everywhere you look, there he is with a shit-eating grin and that handheld of his.”

Jani smiled. “He's my historian.”

“He's a pain in the ass. I feel like I've got the
Tribune-Times
tailing me for one of those ‘how so-and-so spends his day' stories.” John stilled, his eyes narrowing. “Hello. Company.”

Jani turned in time to see Torin lead Niall around an obstacle course of furniture. The man wore fresh desertweights, and had a documents case tucked under his arm. He wasn't alone, either. A female captain shadowed him, also in desertweights, documents case also in hand.

“Evenin'.” Niall stopped beside Jani's couch and sniffed the air, a picture in studied informality, his Sheridan persona in full force. “Bracing. The aromas alone are enough to make my eyes water. I can imagine the taste.”

“You're welcome to join us,” Jani replied. “We offer food to please every palate. Even humanish.” She hadn't meant the remark as an insult, but if Niall's reddening face served as indication, he chose to take it that way.

“Those are Haárin.” The captain looked toward the courtyard at the assembling diners, her eyes widening. “Eating together? In public?”

“They're not full Haárin. They're hybrid, like me.” Jani met the young woman's stare head-on, and was treated to the sight of a blond complexion flaring to bright peach.
A
blushing bunch, our officers be
. She glanced at Niall just as he reached reflexively for his shirt pocket. “Feel free to light up, Colonel—this is Thalassa.” As soon as she spoke, she wished she'd kept her mouth shut—
Colonel
had much the same effect on Niall's complexion as had
humanish
. “Damn it, Niall,” she muttered under her breath, “give the A-G's hatchet man gig a rest.”

Niall stared down at his shoes for a time. Then he edged around the low table and lowered into the same chair Gisa had recently vacated. “Sit down, Captain,” he said to his companion. “If past history is any indication, you're going to need to take good notes.” He set his case atop the table, then made a show of looking toward the courtyard. “Are Major Thomas Hamil or Colonel Dieter Brondt here at the enclave currently?”

“I don't know.” Jani looked to the collecting diners in time to see Torin dart into the lift.
Off to sound the alarm, I'll be bound
. “I haven't seen them for a while.” She looked back at Niall, to find him regarding her with humorless resolve.

“Jan, they're mine.” He tilted his head in the direction of his note-taking captain. “I have enough evidence to request a Board of Inquiry as a Friend of the Service. If they decline to talk to me now, it will only get worse for them.”

Jani felt John's hand enclose hers. He squeezed—she squeezed back. “This enclave is currently under the jurisdiction of the Elyan Haárin, as are all its inhabitants. If you wish to question either Hamil or Brondt, you will need to submit the appropriate request to ná Feyó Tal's offices at the Trade Board in Karistos.”
Where it will be filed appropriately, if I have anything to say about it
.

“Request! They're still Service!”

“Only until their next physicals. At that point they'd have been medicalled out. If I hadn't shown up, that's exactly what would have happened. Why not skip a few steps and dump them now?”

Niall held out a fist as though he meant to shake it in Jani's face, then raised one finger. “Dereliction of duty.” He
raised a second finger. “Desertion.” A third. “Treason, if I can swing it.”

“Heavy charges, Colonel.”

“Not to mention warranted—Brondt's been feeding the Elyan Haárin information about sealed bid projects and dock restrictions for the past eighteen months, at least.”

“Anything detrimental to the Service?”

Niall hesitated. “I'm working on it.”

Jani rested her head against the couchback. Her stomach grumbled as the food odors grew stronger and more complex and inviting. “The Service guidelines regarding detriment are fairly malleable, as I recall. A whack of the jeweler's hammer here and there, and they can be reformed to suit the occasion. I need them here, Niall. Brondt especially.”

“I am not going to let you rework the Service Code for your own convenience.”

“Why not? The Service reworks it for theirs. If they didn't, I wouldn't be alive today.”
And neither would you
. Jani kept that to herself, but she could tell from the flicker in Niall's eyes that he heard it anyway. “A good attorney might argue that the bioemotional changes wrought by their hybridization rendered them incapable of proper Service behavior.” She looked to John, who eyed her with something dangerously close to cold-blooded admiration.

“That's why you made sure Thalassa fell in under Feyó's control,” he said. “To protect them.”

“I was thinking of Tsecha, but the same principle applies to them.” Jani pondered for a moment. “Do you know any good lawyers?”

John smiled. “A few.”

Niall glared at Jani, the hunter's light in his eye returned. “I will say that I expected to have to go to round two on that one.” He nodded, and dragged his documents case onto his lap. “Heard much news lately?”

“From Chicago?” Jani shook her head. “I didn't trust the security of the lines for anything important.”

“How about public?”

“The 'sheets? Haven't had the chance to dig around much lately.” Jani felt her stomach tighten. “Why?”

Niall reached into his documents case and removed a newssheet. “Fort Karistos edition of
Blue and Grey
. Front page.” He unrolled the display parchment and handed it to Jani. “One of Elon's security suborns challenged Pretty Boy. Depending on when the details can be worked out, the bout will be scheduled for the end of next month.” He reached into his shirt pocket and removed his nicstick case, shook out a cylinder, and bit down on the ignition tip with a decisive crunch. “If we leave now,” he said through a haze of smoke, “we just might get to Chicago in time for the show.”

“This story isn't very detailed.” Jani bit into a piece of flatbread, then brushed the crumbs from the newssheet surface. “Lots of extraneous garbage about Lucien's personal life, but very little about why nìRau Ghos challenged him in the first place.”

“Everyone I talk to who knows Pascal thinks the ‘general principles' argument covers the ‘why' pretty well.” Niall set aside a glass of iced tea, then stirred and dredged the contents of his soup bowl. “We're more interested in what he was doing at the Shèráin embassy in the first place. Granted, he does occasionally field for the home team, but most of the time, when he goes there, he goes there for you.” He sniffed at the contents of his spoon, then sipped. Paused to roll the broth around in his mouth, then swallowed with a shrug. “Tastes like good old chicken vegetable to me.” He picked up a slice of flatbread and crumbled it atop the soup. “He's not talking, and he's been pulling in various markers to avoid being pressed. The thought occurred that this might have something to do with Tsecha's problem. What do you think?”

I think that either you already know, and you want to see if what I say matches, or Lucien is holding something back about the mine investigation
. Jani played for time by picking
at her food and looking around the half-deserted courtyard. The rain had stopped sometime before, and many of the Thalassans had dispersed to various parts of the enclave to check for storm damage. The few who remained bustled about on various errands, casting not so surreptitious glances at Jani, Niall, and John each time they passed their table. Of the regular residents, only Eamon had yet to show his face. John said that he was still clearing up after the postaccident onslaught, but Jani wondered. Gisa was Eamon's horse, after all, and she had emerged in fine shape from a messy situation. A little gloating on his part wouldn't have been out of character.

“Lucien spends a lot of his off-time at the Haárin enclave. He tends to travel with Dathim and Tsecha as though he's a natural member of the entourage—he doesn't always stop to think about what some humanish and idomeni think of that.” Jani pushed aside the newssheet and worked on finishing her supper—the chicken that hadn't wound up in the soup, laced with a hot, dark brown sauce that tasted the way John's voice sounded. “Add to that the fact that, as you say, he isn't universally admired. It's a miracle that something like this didn't happen sooner.” She picked up a spice dispenser and shook more ground pepper atop her food.
Lucien, of all the damned times—why now
? “Dathim is training him. That's something, anyway.”

“So you're not worried. It's just one of those things, and you see no reason to return to Chicago to check into it.” Niall shrugged. “Fine. After I finish this, Captain Eglin and I”—he nodded to his blond cohort, who sat downtable rooting through the bread basket—“will take ourselves off and leave you in peace.” He tossed back a swallow of tea, then started back in on his soup, hybrid-watching in between spoonfuls. “What are those things everyone has tied around their wrists?”

“Strips of cloth dipped in my blood.” Jani hid her smile at the sound of Captain Eglin's fork hitting her plate. “We had a little excitement here a couple of hours ago.”

Niall looked from Jani to John, then back again. “Uhhuh.” Alarm warred with irritation on his face—his news about Lucien had been one-upped, and it was obvious from his twitchy expression that the curiosity was killing him. “Cutlery accident?” He raised a butter spreader point up and tipped it back and forth as he eyed the bandage on Jani's arm.

“More a case of pied piper diplomacy.” John tossed his napkin atop his plate and pushed back from the table. “And on that note”—” He bent down and kissed Jani. “—I shall hie off to the clinic and see what Eamon's up to.”

“Get him to look at your cheek.” Jani watched him walk to the lift, his only response to her concern a backhand wave.
Brushing me off already, are you?
The spice residue from his lips had left an enticing sting behind.
Just you wait, Doctor
. She licked it off, then turned back to the table to find Niall eyeing her with annoyance.

“OK, point to you.” He pushed away his bowl, then sat back and took his nicstick case from his pocket. “Do you care about this challenge to Pascal or don't you?”

“Of course I care.”
Damn it
. Jani scrubbed her hands over her face and stifled a yawn. She needed sleep, and it didn't look like she'd be getting it anytime soon. “Revenge for the Vynshàrau killed in the mine accident crosses one's mind.”

“That was the first thing that occurred to us, too, but it's never that simple these days, is it?” Niall took a 'stick from his case, but instead of igniting it, he held it lengthwise and tapped it on the table so it slid through his fingers, then turned it over and started again. “The only direct experience Burkett at Diplo has with challenges was what he picked up with yours last summer. His folks have studied, but you know as well as I do that it's not the same thing. Tsecha's problems have made him persona non grata at his embassy and have also compounded our difficulties in trying to work with him.”

“So he's still in Chicago?” Jani hoped the relief in her voice wasn't as obvious as it sounded.

“Yes, he is, for all the good he's doing anyone.” Niall took
a deep breath. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but we're scrambling here, time is short, and tempers on both sides are just looking for an excuse. We need your help, and I'm authorized to deal to get it.” He spoke in a voice so low that even Eglin had to sit forward to hear him. “What do you want?”

Jani sat silent, conscious of Niall's worried glower, Eglin's more goggle-eyed assessment, the fidgeting of a group of younger hybrids who stood off to one side and waited for them to leave so they could clear the table.
All they have to do is ask
. Yes, sometimes it really was that simple. She glanced across the table at Niall, a move sufficient to set him fidgeting.
So that's how a friendship ends
. When what once would have been a request, an appeal, turns to an act of barter.
Fine.
“I note the fact that you made this proposal after you tried to get your hands on Brondt and Hamil.”

“I really wanted them, Jan. Brondt especially.” Niall shrugged. “Can't blame a man for trying.”

“Why ever not?” Jani cradled her right arm—the transfuser site ached and her wound stung every time she moved. “Leave them be. You want them out, medical them. I doubt Mako wants the news of Elyan Haárin dock infiltration to get out, anyway.”

Niall tapped the 'stick through his fingers one last time, then stared at it. “Is that all?”

“If I've any consideration left, I'll bank it. If I can.” Jani looked to the skylight, the railed walkways, the gardens that surrounded them. Her color-coded dishes and the aromas that fed her just by inhaling. “When were you planning on leaving?” She tried not to think of the view from her bedroom window, the warmth, the sounds of the sea.
I can ask John to come back with me
. That idea, at least, gave her mood a boost.

“Tomorrow early afternoon. I would come here to get you late morning, to allow time for all those last minute complications that always seem to arise.” Niall nodded once, a
shaky lowering of his chin. “Thank you. I'm gathering the impression that you really don't want to leave right now.”

“It's not a good time, no.” Jani wondered if despite earlier signs, Feyó's concussion was severe enough to incapacitate her, and if she would still be able to ride herd on the Outer Circle Haárin and maintain the newly mended union. If Gisa would make trouble again. If Niall's word regarding Brondt and Hamil meant anything. “I might ask John to come.”

Niall brightened, which indicated how uncomfortable he felt at the prospect of spending over five weeks alone with her. “That would be fine. Whatever you want.”

“Yes.” Jani dragged her napkin off her lap and tossed it on the table. “Tomorrow, then.”

Niall stiffened as the fact of the dismissal soaked in. “Tomorrow.” He stood, his chair tottering as he pushed it back with force. “And tomorrow, and tomorrow.” He headed for the door, leaving Eglin to hustle to catch him up. “Not an appropriate quote for the moment, but it is still from the Scottish play, and anything with knives in it seems befitting now.” The door slid open and he vanished into the night, Eglin closing in behind him like a flustered shadow.

 

“We confirm Colonel Pierce's information. Ní Tsecha is still in Chicago.” Ná Feyó lay atop the scanbed in the clinic's largest examining room, holding a court of sorts, surrounded by suborns and a few of the hybrid Haárin that had come from her enclave. “His movements have been restricted more and more. It is feared and truly that he will simply disappear one day, and that the next we hear of him will be when we learn that Cèel has him.” The skin around her eye shone slick with anti-inflammatories, and the swelling had receded enough that she could partially open her eye. “This is not a time I ever believed I would see.”

“Ní Tsecha has changed. It's as though he hybridized in the mind instead of the body.” Jani sat on a lab chair, which
was situated high enough so she could rest her feet atop one of the lab benches. “He's been delving into university libraries, reading of humanish religions and histories. I'm guessing his views would rattle any Haárin, much less a bornsect.”

“I wish to meet him, and truly.” Gisa sat in the far corner of the room, Bon as usual at her side. “You must bring him back with you, ná Kièrshia, so he may glory in his words come to life.”

Jani nodded as the tension ramped. Feyó lay her head back in an attention-getting swoon that drew two of her suborns to her side, an act that brought smiles from Bon and Gisa.
This place is starting to remind me of Cabinet Row
. She huddled in the medcoat one of the techs had given her to cover her bare arms.
Maybe I need a vacation after all
. Not that the trip to Chicago would count.
Please let those damned wristbands keep working after I break orbit, Lord Ganesh, I pray
. “My doctor must see to my injuries—please excuse me, ná Feyó.” She slipped off the chair and out the door before anyone had the chance to reply.

Chamberlain, where are you?
Jani stalked the halls, shoved aside doors and searched empty labs and offices, on the hunt for Brondt. She had just completed a circuit of the basement and made ready to enter the lift when she sensed a presence behind her and turned.

“Ná Kièrshia.” Brondt first bowed in the humanish fashion, then stood as straight as he could in a posture of idomeni regard. A look of uncharacteristic puzzlement suffused his broad features, as though he couldn't decide which protocol stated his feelings better. “I understand I owe you more than I can ever repay.” He finally settled for a variation of Service at-ease—feet shoulders-width apart, hands clasped loosely behind his back—which seemed to fit him best of all. “My thanks. Thanks from Hamil as well—he's repairing a leaky roof at one of the greenhouses or he'd tell you himself.”

“You're not in the clear yet.” Jani stepped away from the
lift and started down the hall, pausing to allow Brondt to precede her. “Niall wants your hide—he believes your informing Feyó of station issues constitutes treason against the Commonwealth.”

Brondt stopped in mid-stride and looked at Jani over his shoulder. “Do you feel that way?”

“By his standards, I'm a traitor as well. Our friendship kept him from seeing it.”

“But you're not friends anymore.” Brondt's usually composed gaze softened. “I'm sorry.” He hung his head and resumed walking. “I should compliment you on your display this evening.” He raised his right hand in a mailfist salute, exposing the strip of bloodstained cloth tied around his wrist. “I knew blood would be shed, but I never thought it would be yours alone.”

“I couldn't cut Gisa—that would have signified declaration, which in turn would have led to a permanent schism here.” Jani passed a lab and wondered if John worked there, or Eamon. Whether they labored together or kept their distance from one another. “While Haárin are used to dealing with that sort of public animosity, humanish feel the need to escalate. Every drop of blood Gisa shed would have meant a corpse later on, of that I am most sure, and truly.” They came upon a small break area, and she herded Brondt inside. “Does Feyó still expect you to provide her information of what goes on here?”

“I believe that now more than ever she will expect such.” Brondt waved Jani toward the lone table in the alcove, and poured coffee from the community brewer that dominated one corner of the space. “You've granted Gisa her own power base and ordained it with the blood of the priest.” He grinned in memory as he trudged to the table, steaming dispos in hand. “Feyó's not happy with you right now, I'm guessing. She's hoping that if you bring ní Tsecha here, she can work her influence through him to keep you at bay.”

“This place is Chicago with palm trees.” Jani hunched over her cup. “What are you going to tell her?”

Brondt stared into his coffee. “What do you want me to say?”

Jani leaned forward, elbows on table, and propped her chin in her hands. “We need to strike a balance—if we look too strong, we'll panic the Haárin. If we look too weak, they'll leave us to twist in the wind.” She held up three fingers. “I'll be gone three months Common, minimum. Repeated reminders that the one who started it all is coming should keep the lid on the place.”

Brondt sipped the coffee and made a face. “So, you are going to try to bring ní Tsecha here?”

“I have to. Chicago's become too inhospitable, and he can never return to the worldskein.” Jani tried her own coffee, found it rather good, and felt pity for the soul responsible for making a brew that tasted reasonable to palates at multiple stages of hybridization.