Code of Conduct (30 page)

After a minute or so, Doyle's display flickered. “Here it comes,” she whispered.

Jani watched the edge of the screen. “What does it say?”

“Just a list of names and dates so far.” Doyle's eyes wid
ened. “Wow, she
was
there then,” she said, partly to herself. “Old school friend. Had a rep as a patho. Always told me she was on staff on Shèrá. Thought she was lying.” She looked at Jani, then touched another area of the board. “Let me print you something solid. You look ready to jump out of your chair.” Several sheets of paper emerged from a slot in the workstation's side, and Doyle handed them to Jani.

Jani took the papers in her left hand. The one that wasn't shaking.
Two women died because of what's on this paper
. She studied the column of names. Acton van Reuter's name was entered several times, as was Evan's.

Makes sense
. Daddy messaging Sonny several times a day, demanding he get the hell out of the line of fire and come home like a good little van Reuter. Jani checked the date-time column. Most of the messages had been sent before the crash, while she had still been trapped at Knevçet Shèràa.

John said the transport had been sent from a Service fuel depot just outside the city
. According to Lucien, that's where the bomb had been planted. The site had an odd code, an alphanumeric that corresponded to its location on a Service grid map of the area.
N-2-D
—

—1-4-3-7-L. Jani read the rest of the code, next to Evan's name. An outgoing call, made soon after the last in a series of communications with his father.

The buzzing in her head resumed. Intensified.

But he could have been talking to anyone there
. The Service personnel stationed at the depot were the primary sources of information regarding Laumrau and Vynshà troop movements. Someone from the Consulate would have had to keep in touch with them regularly.

Don't make excuses for him anymore
. Jani reread the entry. The right day. The right time. A short call. Only a few seconds. A call someone expected. A simple order.
Do it
.

“Is something wrong, Risa? You don't look well.” Doyle leaned across her desk. “Is it important? What the hell do you see!”

More than two women died because of what's on this paper
. Eight patients. Twenty-six Laumrau. Fifteen members of the Twelfth Rover Corps. Rikart Neumann.

And, in ways large and small, though not as important, Jani Kilian.

“Risa! Talk to me!”

You always took orders, didn't you, Evan
? Jani heard a rustling to her left. Caught a whiff of burnt leather. She looked up to find Borgie standing beside her chair.

“Got your motive for Lady Lyssa's death now, don't you, Captain? She found out her husband gave the order to bomb your transport. Your old boyfriend. Saving his ass as usual. Keeping his eye on the ball. Not caring who got hurt.” His fatigues stank of smoke and sweat. Dirt smeared his face. “I can't tell you anything you don't already know, Captain. Don't give me the wide-eyed look.”

“I never would have guessed.”

“Ah, bullshit, Captain. You remember what he was. You've been jumpy as a cat since you've been here. Glass in his hand all the time, just like back then. Making excuses, just like back then. Always somebody else's fault, just like back then.” He looked at his T-40 and grimaced. “I think it crossed his mind more than once you might be on that transport. But his overbred ass was on the line. First things first—save the tears for later.”

“I think you're right, Sergeant,” Jani said. From far away, she heard Doyle calling her. No, not her. Someone else.

“Risa, who the hell are you talking to! Answer me, damn it!”

Jani stood up, almost stumbling as her back cramped. She shoved the papers and scanpack into her duffel and headed for the door.

“Tyi! Stop! Drop the bag! Put your hands where I can see them! Turn around slowly!”

Something in Doyle's tone made Jani stop. More than mere loudness. Panic. The kind that had drawn its weapon. The kind with blood in it.

Blood sings to me. I know the words
. Jani let her bag slide to the floor, put her hands up, and turned. Doyle had indeed drawn her shooter—the bright red sight fix skittered across Jani's shirtfront like an insect. Better to stand still. Nervous hands made for messy shooting.

“
Roche
!” Doyle shouted. “Get the meds up here now!”
She edged around her desk. “Don't move, Risa—I will shoot.”

Blood sings
. Strange songs. Jani heard the pound of footsteps in the hallway. Muffled shouts.
Blood talks, too. It asks, “Evan, how could you
?” Amid the voices, Jani heard Doyle call out, “She's in here.” Then she felt a cool prickle between her shoulder blades. Then she heard nothing at all.

“Of course you understand, nìRau, that much depends on your people's willingness to let bygones be bygones.”

Tsecha looked Prime Minister Cao in the face as he tried to discern her meaning. The female raised her chin in acknowledgment of his attention and curved her lips without baring her teeth. On its own, Tsecha had learned over the past weeks, the expression meant nothing. Cao always smiled.

“I do not understand you,
nìa
,” he said. “Please explain.” The female's lips curved even more.
Yes, it is good to have called her nìa
. The only other humanish female he had called by the informal title in this damned cold city had been Hansen Wyle's daughter.
And she had not smiled
. She had shouted, in fact, and stamped her foot. Her voice had grown so loud, embassy Security had wanted to expel her from the grounds. How the young one had cried out.
I'm not my father
!

“Bygones, nìRau.” Cao shifted in her high seat. Like Ulanova, her legs were not long enough to provide adequate counterbalance. She tottered and had to grab hold of the sides of her seat cushion to keep from falling. “We will ignore the fact the Elyasian Haárin are trying to monopolize transport refitting in most of the Outer Circle. In return, your colonial Council will cease its attempts to secure full and unrestricted access to Padishah GateWay.”

Tsecha nodded, his eyes fixed on the Prime Minister's pale-knuckled grip on her chair.
If I moved quickly, she would tumble to the floor
. He had done such once before, to Enne-gret Nawar, during the young male's Academy entrance in
terview. As Tsecha remembered, Nawar had not thought it very funny.
He bruised his hip, and split his trousers
. Nervous humanish, he had learned, needed to be treated carefully.

“NìRau? Are you listening to me?”

Tsecha studied Cao's round, golden face. Her eyebrows, thin as black pencil lines, had drawn down in puzzlement. “Yes, nìa,” he replied. “You will allow my Sìah Haárin to continue to attempt to rebuild your most aged, unspaceworthy ships. In exchange, we the idomeni are to surrender in our efforts to gain more direct access to our Vren colonies, which suffer already from undersupply and dwindling populations. Thank you. Most generous. My Oligarch will be most pleased.”

“NìRau—”

“Why do you not say what you mean? Why do humanish never say what they mean? As long as Padishah remains secure, you will have no worry that Haárin will try to settle on Nueva Madrid. Your Service hospital will remain safe from our observation. Your experiments will remain safe from our observation.”

“NìRau!”

“We have known of the Ascertane work for some time, Your Excellency.” Tsecha's use of Cao's humanish title upset the female, as he knew it would. Every trace of her constant smile disappeared. “We also know of the attempts John Shroud's colonial hospitals have made to recruit Haárin into other medical studies. So much have our outcasts been promised in return for their help. Access to business. Status. I wonder how Albino John is able to offer so much. I wonder who allows Albino John to offer so much.”

The pleasing color drained from Cao's face, changing from Sìah-like gold to the bloodless sand of her tunic. Shards of pure color, formed by the lake reflection through idomeni window glass, danced over her face as though small flares burned beneath her skin. The lake itself, Tsecha could see, had calmed, the shore ice that had been shattered by the storm re-formed. A pleasing observation, a well-ordered reflection of the room itself: large, lake-facing, quiet, with chairs even a humanish would consider tolerable. With the exception of
his own rooms, Tsecha favored this place most in all the embassy.

Cao breathed in deeply. “Since we're being so open and aboveboard with one another, nìRau—”

Ah, sarcasm
.

“—perhaps you would be so good as to explain your actions of the past few days?”

“Actions?” Tsecha folded his arms into the full sleeves of his overrobe and shifted on his low stool. Had they found traces of his presence in the Exterior skimmer? Clothes? Hair? Skinprints?
But I took such care
. Would they be watching his hiding places tonight?
But I have so much to do
!

“The Exterior Minister has complained to me—”

Tsecha held his breath.

“—of your surprising attitude toward our requests for information concerning Haárin soil- and water-treatment systems in our Outer Circle. The reluctance of your Oligarch, of your Council and Temple, didn't surprise us, but we expected more of you, nìRau. Considering your history of kindliness toward us, even during difficult times, we find this sudden lack of cooperation on your part most unsettling—”

Tsecha watched the lake shimmer in the cold sunlight like metal foil.
My two favorites would have liked this room, I think
.

“—if not downright alarming.” The Prime Minister paused to dab perspiration from her forehead with a wisp of white cloth she then tucked inside her tunic sleeve. Outside, the air could freeze one's blood, but the temperature inside the viewing room was most pleasant. “This place is set up to remind you of Rauta Shèràa, nìRau?” she asked as she made a small gesture toward the sand-painted walls and sun-stone-tiled floor.

“Yes, nìa.”

“Even the temperature?”

“Do you not find it comforting?” Tsecha inhaled deeply of the hot, dry air. “I was told you would find it comforting.” He had, of course, been told no such thing. The ease with which he lied about such an inconsequence was lessened by the fact that, for the first time since he had arrived in this frozen city, he felt truly warm.

Cao patted her forehead again. “I think you are pulling my leg, nìRau.”

“Pulling your leg, nìa?” Tsecha looked at the female's cloth-covered limbs in alarm. He and the Prime Minister sat an arm's length apart—he had not touched her! “I only enjoy the warmth,” he admitted, “and wish you to think I provided it for you.” A humiliating admission, perhaps, but better that than to suffer such disorder!

Cao drew up straighter in her seat. “The strategy sounds familiar. Which of your Six taught you that particular lesson, nìRau?”

“My Tongue taught me most.” Tsecha bared his teeth. “My Hansen.”

“I should have guessed,” Cao said, frowning. “I watched Hansen Wyle grow up. He schooled with my children. With all due respect, nìRau, learning humanish ways from that man was the equivalent of learning table manners from Vlad the Impaler.”

“Vlad, nìa?”

“A long-dead dominant of ours. You would have considered him most disordered.” A shadow of a smile revisited Cao. “Do you think much of Hansen these days, nìRau?”

Tsecha felt the female's stare, chilling where the sun had so recently warmed. “I think of Hansen every day, nìa.”

“Do you think of any of the the others, as well?”

To lie successfully, Nema, you need to think of it as a game
. His Hansen had sat in a room much like this one. Fallow time had come to the north-central regions; rain and wind had beaten against the window like souls screaming for mercy.
The best human liars think of it as a game. Don't think of the importance of what you're saying, or what you're trying to accomplish—if you do that, you'll lose. It's just a game Nema. Just a game
.

“No, nìa,” Tsecha answered, “I think of no other.”
I am as a young one, playing my game
.

“Exterior Minister Ulanova believes otherwise, nìRau.”

A good liar knows how to use truth, Nema. He realizes its value better than anyone
. “My Anais, nìa,” Tsecha said, “has much of which to worry. Much which gives her trouble.” He bit his lip to avoid baring his teeth as his Lucien's
stiff posture at the theater sprang up from his memory. “The youngish lieutenant. Pascal.”

“Yes.” Cao's look held surprise. “Well, if
you
can figure out what's going on, someone had better have a talk with our Anais, and soon.” She slid carefully off her seat. The click of her shoes on the bare tile echoed within the room. “I must go, nìRau. Time for my staff to begin the dance with your staff, I suppose. As usual, I have had an interesting time.”

Tsecha followed Cao out of the room. In the hall, Sànalàn appeared from the shadowed interior of a side hall and took over the escort duties. Blessedly alone, Tsecha hurried back to his rooms. The time for midevening sacrament was fast approaching, and he had much for which to prepare.

He stripped off his clothing as soon as his doors slid closed and hurried to the sanitary room for a quick laving. Even as water dripped from his soaked head, Tsecha rummaged through his clothing cupboard for that which he needed for his evening's work: the silkweave cold-weather suit which would fit under his clothes like skin and the battered bronze-metal case containing other lessons learned from war.

Tsecha finished dressing. On its cupboard shelf, the metal case awaited his attention. He lifted it, its weight as nothing in his hands, and dumped its contents onto his bed. The two thin Vynshàrau blades he strapped over the sleeves of his coldsuit. The Pathen Haárin shooter he shoved into a pocket in the coldsuit's front. The weapon bulged from his chest as a second heart, but it would be most easy to reach if it proved needed. This he knew from experience.

With an ease he knew would have surprised his Lucien, Tsecha stowed supplemental shooter power packs and assorted scanning and blocking devices within other pockets in the suit. Shielded by the special polymer weave, his weapons would fail to activate embassy scanners.
I am most as Haárin
. He had felt such during the war, when he had allowed Hansen to persuade him to have the suit made. The materials were meant to be used in weapons-systems construction only—the fact a chief propitiator caused them to be used in ways not their own moved beyond disorder and into chaos.

I have always been as Haárin
. Tsecha pulled on a fresh overrobe, then sat in his favored chair.
Because of such, I
understand my Captain
. After a time, room illumins lulled by stillness darkened to thin half-light. Tsecha felt along his sleeves and touched each blade in turn. Through the altar-room door, he heard the soft sounds of his cook-priest and her suborn as they readied midevening sacrament.

I feel no fear
. His hands were dry and steady. His heart did not thud beneath his ribs.
Soon I shall walk into the night, as my Captain did
. The thought should have sickened him, but it did not. He knew, as she had known before him, that a disordered way sometimes proved the only one possible.