Crossing the Line (21 page)

Eddie sat down at the table, still bouncing with enthusiasm. He reached for his glass.

“Do you want to get the next bit over with so you can drink the wine without worrying?” said Shan.

“The next bit being?”

“I ask you questions. Don't struggle and it won't hurt.”

“I'm all yours.”

Eddie knew the game. Shan knew he knew the game. It was just like old times, and she opened with a concession that was also a flush question. “Okay, the ussissi think
Actaeon
took the payload and the Booties off
Thetis
because humans are planning to blow her up with the aliens on board.” She had learned to use the feminine gender for ships now. “They're well fucked off about it.”

Eddie's face told her all she wanted to know. It was complete lack of comprehension, the tiniest of flash-frowns and a single quick movement of the eyes. “Christ,” he said. “That's not it at all. Not what I heard.”

“They just made an intuitive leap from the reaction back home to your reports, Eddie.” Shan knew him now: she knew him because he had not broadcast her frank admission about involvement with Green Rage, nor the isenj information on
c'naatat.
And he had regretted accusing her of being a paid biotech mule. She knew that he felt guilt. Guilt was sometimes as effective as a good kicking when it came to getting answers, and a lot less trouble. “They're suspicious. Wouldn't you be?”

“Okurt extracted the payload and the marines to see if they'd caught a dose of your disease. What's it called?
C'naatat.
Big bucks, top priority.”

“Oh dear,” said Shan. She started eating. “And now they'll hear that
Hereward
is steaming this way.”

“And it's all my fault?”

Mestin cut in. She should have known better than to interrupt. “You didn't launch the ship. You didn't remove the
gethes.
Others are responsible.”

Shan's scalp tightened instantly and she turned her coldest stare on Mestin, who clearly smelled that the interruption was out of order. She froze. Shan, satisfied that she was still running this interrogation and that Mestin knew her place as bagman, turned back to Eddie.

“As I was saying, they're stoked up and they feel very threatened, and so do the wess'har. They don't react well to threats. Ask the isenj.”

“
Hereward
will take twenty-five years to get here. We've got time to talk it out.”

“You don't understand how these people think, Eddie. They have one switch. Either they're chilled or they're punching. They have a lovely phrase for it. ‘Threat is now.' They react immediately, even if it's a long way off.”

“What are you telling me?”

“Serious shit time, Eddie.” Shan groped for something smart but fell back on cliché, because clichés were all too often the truth. “It's war.”

He made a heroic job of trying to look as if his dish of penne with rocket pesto was far more important than the revelation that humankind had fallen into conflict with a species that erased entire cities and took good care of their friends.

“Me and my big mouth,” he said at last.

“You only altered the timing, Eddie. At least there's breathing space.”

“You think that I don't give a shit as long as I get a story.”

“No, I think you care too much.” Shan paused. She almost felt bad doing it to him: he was a good bloke. “And there's one more thing they need to factor in back home. The World Before.”

Aras, who knew better than to interrupt his
isan
in full flow, froze too. Both he and Mestin looked like those annoying street mime artists who posed as statues to startle passersby.

“This isn't going to be good news, is it, Shan?” said Eddie.

“No. There's an original wess'har homeworld where they do things a bit differently. The wess'har here are just like the Bible-bashers in Constantine—the harmless dropouts. No, it's not good at all.”

Eddie put his twin-tined glass fork down on the table with a sharp
clack
, penne momentarily forgotten and congealing.

“I'm not bluffing,” said Shan. “I'll show you some interesting locations later. You're welcome to film.”

“I didn't think you were,” said Eddie.

“Okurt asked you to share information on your return, no doubt.”

“And what are
you
asking for?”

“The same, of course. I'll understand if you won't spy. But it's a matter for you. You know what's at stake.”

It was an onion, layer upon layer, both of them aware that the other knew that this was an elaborate game of manipulation, veneer on veneer. The first one to the innermost layer was the winner.

It was Shan.

It always was: except for that one time when a minister's sister had maneuvered her into siding with ecoterrorists and set her on a path that eventually marooned her 150 trillion miles from home.

Eddie returned to his dish of penne.

“Okay,” said Eddie. “Show me.”

In the Exchange of Surplus Things, sitting on crates of fruit or standing silently against walls, the matriarchs of forty city-states waited for Mestin and Shan to find a place among them and make their case.

Shan stood a little to the front of Mestin with her hands clasped behind her back, head slightly bowed, spectacularly alien in that matte black uniform. Blue and violet lights reflected on the back of her garment from her hands: everyone had heard about her strange
c'naatat
adaptations.

Matriarchs and ussissi stared at her. Her smooth black hair was exotically unusual in a sea of gold and amber, and Mestin heard a distant comment that it was hard to tell the creature's gender by sight. She wore her hair long like a male and she was a head shorter than a female.

If you were within scent range of her, you'd know,
thought Mestin. She hoped nobody would provoke Shan to anger and unleash that dominance pheromone of hers again: it would cause chaos, and that was one thing they could not afford right now.

Mestin draped her
dhren
carefully so that it flowed round her arms and formed a long-sleeved tunic. It was curious how Shan admired what she called the
opalescence
of the fabric and yet shied away from wearing it: she said she didn't have the build to carry it off, whatever that meant. Mestin wondered if she herself had the defensive spirit, the
jask
, to carry off a decision to take F'nar—and with it Wess'ej—into a state of war with a new enemy.

She looked around. There were nearly a thousand small cities scattered across the planet, and if their matriarchs were not present, they would be watching and hearing through the communications network anyway.

Vijissi had settled near Shan, sitting back on his haunches. She shifted a little, as if to keep at constant distance: he shuffled a little closer each time. He was taking his instruction to look after her very seriously. Mestin suspected he liked her more than he would admit.

“We will bar Bezer'ej to the
gethes
for all time,” Mestin said. “
Shan Chail
has provided sufficient tissue for us to create a biological deterrent that will confine itself to
gethes.
We will seek a similar deterrent for the isenj, because we may now have a source, and then we can remove the Temporary City to leave the bezeri in peace.”

In her peripheral vision, Mestin noted that Shan's head had jerked up a fraction and then fallen again. She was surprised by something. Mestin would ask her later.

“What will you do with the
gethes
already on Bezer'ej?” asked Bur of Pajatis.

“We'll offer them a chance to resettle here in a controlled environment,” said Shan. “They're harmless.”

“And if they refuse?”

Mestin saw that Shan had her fingers meshed tightly behind her back. But there was no scent at all, just the sporadic violet lights. “Then they'll die,” she said calmly.

“We offer troops if landings and military action becomes necessary,” said Bur. “We all will.”

Then they simply began leaving the hall. Shan seemed baffled and turned to Mestin. “Is that it?”

“Did you expect more?”

“I thought a war summit might take more than a few minutes.”

“There is consensus,” Mestin said. “Beyond detail, there normally is.”

“We never get past the detail,” said Shan.

They were alone with the surplus produce in the hall, except for a male who was stacking pallets of yellow-leaf. It was a record harvest this year.

“What did I say that surprised you?” Mestin said.

“That you had a source of isenj DNA.” She simply didn't smell of anything other than that alien musk, and that was softened by her newly acquired wess'har scent. Her voice seemed tight somehow. Some of the overtones were inaudible.

“I thought you might ask Eddie Michallat, seeing as he has easy access to Umeh.”

“Ah.” That
gethes
breath of sound that implied anything from amusement to disgust. “
Okay.
”

“Is there a problem?”

“I can't see Eddie agreeing to collect tissue samples, or even how he's going to do it, but I'll ask anyway.”

“Have you told Aras about this?”

“Not yet. But if he's on the network, he'll know now, though, and I'm going to have a very difficult conversation with him.”

“How are relations between you? He seems content.”

“Pretty good,” said Shan. “At least they were. I'll know when I get home.”

“Why did you not mention it to him?”

“Because I knew he would be concerned about his friends in Constantine, and that he didn't approve of bioweapons, and that he would probably have influenced my decision.”

“You don't seem a person who is easily persuaded.”

“You don't know how much I want him to be happy,” said Shan, and gave Mestin one of those odd, tight-lipped smiles that weren't smiles at all. They were quite the opposite.

She was still flashing sporadic violet light as she walked out of the hall. Mestin could have sworn she saw a faint burst of yellow-green as well.

But she didn't smell of anything at all.

 

Aras had taken Eddie to the underground bunkers as Shan had told him to, and had also made a great effort to say nothing that might indicate there was not an infinite supply of armaments. Eddie was very satisfied with the pictures he got. The scale and perspective of the tunnels delighted him. He seemed to enjoy making images attractive.

Eddie's bee-cam flitted everywhere, recording the craft and machinery. Shan had said there was nothing on them that could provide the
gethes'
military analysts with the slightest information they could use to defeat them. Aras was not used to wars where enemies didn't know what the opposing force intended, possessed, or thought. He kept his counsel.

“Bloody hell,” said Eddie. “Has every city got something like this?”

“Yes,” said Aras. It was true. He didn't have to volunteer the fact that they feared it would still not be enough.

“Can you fly these things?”

“That one,” said Aras. He put his hand on the airframe of the fighter and the canopy parted.

Eddie made a sharp sucking sound and pressed his fingers against his ears.

“I flew one on Bezer'ej, and I crashed in one, which is how I came to fall into the hands of the isenj.”

“I know what they did to you, Aras. I'm sorry. I don't know what to say.”

“There's nothing to say.”

“They don't seem a sadistic people, but who's to tell?”

“It was five hundred years ago. What were your kind doing to each other then?”

Eddie looked as if he were calculating, eyes focused on an imaginary point above him. “The 1800s.” He shrugged. “To be honest, we're still torturing each other now, so it's not a valid question. Do you feel a little more forgiving of them, then?”

Aras had no inclination to forgive. It seemed irrelevant to his wess'har side and undeserved to his human one. He wondered how he could deal with the painful realization that Shan had not told him she had cooperated on bioweapons. “I don't forgive. The isenj might have changed. But I can only judge by their actions, and at the moment, they still breed to destruction, and they will still do the same on Bezer'ej. So I will still kill them to stop them doing so. Was that your question?”

“You don't regret Mjat.”

“It was unpleasant, but I would do it again under the same circumstances, just as you would attack those who caused death and suffering to your own allies.”

“I'm not judging you, Aras. Just asking.”

“Humans always judge.” Aras had cut Eddie some slack, as Shan put it, by not calling him
gethes.
He rather liked Eddie, even though he had that flat, bitter odor common to flesh-eating creatures. Perhaps he had started to get in the habit of granting forgiveness where none was deserved.

“What about revenge?” Eddie asked.

“That's not the same as balance.”

“A matter of degree?”

“Probably. I think you call it reasonable force.”

“There are many humans who would find your force against the isenj unreasonable.”

“Then they should talk to the bezeri. They numbered bil lions before the isenj came. Their population has only recovered to a few hundred thousand or so now. They breed slowly. They spawn in only a few places around the island chain and they won't change that, even though it makes them vulnerable.” It was another reason why Parekh had deserved to die: the dead infant was a rare and precious being. He didn't have to justify that to Eddie Michallat. “But don't feel obliged to suppress the story. Your people should be told what we did to the isenj. They need all the facts.”

Eddie gave him a careful look, and Aras wondered if he thought he might be indulging in what Shan called
propaganda.
The best translation she could come up with was fact-weapon, or, more probably, lie-weapon. But this was completely true. It was merely the timing that made it effective.

“If the bezeri are that intelligent, why don't they just spawn somewhere else away from landmasses?” Eddie asked.

“They value place,” said Aras. “I could have shown you a map made long before I came here, a map of sand compressed between two sheets of
azin
shell. Why do maps matter to them? Because they can only exist in certain parts of the ocean, in certain mineral concentrations. If you can't manipulate your environment, then you must work with it. There are other places they could go, just a few, but these are their spawning grounds and this is where they choose to congregate.”

“I just wondered if they could move. It's not very smart, choosing a situation that makes you vulnerable.”

“And that would justify their fate?”

“No, but if you can just change your behavior and avoid a lot of grief—”

“I seem to recall humans do stupid things that make them vulnerable every day. They consume things they know will hasten their deaths and they live in places they know are likely to be stricken by disaster. Perhaps that justifies their fate too.”

“Now that you put it in those terms, I see my error.”

“Don't mock me, Eddie.”

“I didn't mean to. It's just very harsh.”

“Do you blame
Ailuropoda melanoleuca
for being wholly reliant on bamboo?”

“What?”

“The black and white bear you find so appealing. The panda.”

“Not at all. Bloody tragic. We destroyed their habitat. It's not as if they had any choice.”

“Actually, they are capable of eating small animals, and do. Nobody blames them for having evolved into a very restricted niche. Perhaps that's because they're pretty and their image makes fine toys, whereas the bezeri remind you of an item on the menu.”

“Hey, I didn't make the rules.”

“And why
do
humans encourage their children to love other creatures in an iconic form, and then to abuse them in the flesh?”

“You've lost me, mate.”

“Animal toys. I remain confused by that habit.”

“You ask too many hard questions,” said Eddie. “And coming from a journalist, that's high praise.”

They walked back up to the surface and wandered through the fields. Eddie tripped over a
genadin
and it fled while he tried to track it with his camera. It was a pleasant evening.
Tem
flies danced over a sun-baked rock, laying another coating of pearl.

“Can I ask you something personal, Aras?”

“And Mjat wasn't?”

“I mean about you and Shan. Are you two an item now?”

“What does that mean?”

“Are you dating?” he smiled. Aras realized he was teasing kindly, innocently. “Playing house?”

“If you are asking if I'm
fucking
her, yes. That's the right word, isn't it? She's my
isan
and I'm bonded to her. And I'm happy to be so.”

“Shitty death,” said Eddie, face fallen, all shock. “You and
her
?”

“Simple congratulations would suffice. That, or a set of attractive wineglasses, according to Shan.”

Eddie looked uncertain whether to laugh or not. Aras enjoyed playing that verbal game with humans. They never knew if he was being naively literal or making a joke at their expense. Sometimes he wasn't sure himself.

“What's this thing you're both carrying, then?”

“A parasite.”

“What?”

“Perhaps it's best described as a symbiont.”

“Not biotech?”

“We didn't create it, if that's what you mean.” He thought of Shan, and what she had done, and judged that a bit of
saber- rattling
was in order whether he liked it or not. He didn't enjoy these mind-games; Shan was a master at it. He did his best, without lying. “We can create biological weapons, but this was not one of them.”

“I do fully understand what the risks are if it gets into the human population.”

“I think understanding that and not being tempted by it are entirely different states of mind.”

“How is Shan coping with it?”

“She was angry. Now she has come to terms with it. It's much easier to accept when there are two of you.”

“They're hell-bent on getting hold of it, Aras.”

“They can't. It exists in me, and it exists in Shan, and
Actaeon
has access to neither of us. It's an organism native to an isolated part of Bezer'ej—and you have no access there either.”

“I hope not,” said Eddie. “You know they even wanted to exhume Lin's kid to check him out for it?”

Aras hissed to himself, and then wondered how
Actaeon
's people imagined they could take on the wess'har defenses and reach the plain outside Constantine where he had set the stained glass headstone to mark David Neville's tiny grave.