Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction) (18 page)

Tatian nodded again.
Under other circumstances, the IDCA would be glad to see the legality
of the Haran sex trade questioned in the local courts, but not when
it meant questioning the off-world presence as well. Tendlathe could
get entirely too much power out of this case; better to get
concessions from Temelathe instead, do him a favor, and wait for a
more propitious moment to attack trade.

"On top of all that,
or as a result of it, Temelathe has been screwing around with the
Stiller election lists," Jhirad said, and Tatian frowned at the
apparent inconsequence. "Bear with me, Tatian, it all fits."

"Go ahead," Tatian
said, and leaned back in his chair. He heard himself doubtful and
knew the others did, too.

"He's taking a hell
of a chance," Valmy said, almost to herself. "There are a lot of
people pissed off about it."

Jhirad nodded.
"Basically, he's arranged for Stiller to nominate two unsuitable
candidates for
seraaliste
.
One is a man named Daithef, who's considered pretty much a joke,
and the other is Warreven, who is one of the advocates involved in
this case. We think he's trying to get Warreven out of the courts
and is either trying to bribe 3im--
seraaliste
is a powerful position, the person who holds it is one of the more
important Important Men--or at least get 3im
out of the way, keep 3im
away from trade cases for the next calendar year. It's also
possible he's trying to bring 3im
back into his party. You know--no, you probably don't know, it was
before your time--Temelathe wanted 3im
to marry Tendlathe, and I think he, Temelathe, would still like to
have Warreven on his side."

"Warreven said no to
that," Valmy said, "and rumor says 3e's
saying no to the nomination, too."

Tatian blinked, trying
to imagine the person he'd seen--long hair and pointed chin,
strong bones beneath skin like silk, loose vest and trousers and the
clashing metal bracelets, casually kind and as casually sexual, like
and not like any indigene he'd met before--married to Tendlathe
Stane. The idea, the casual switch of legal gender, was too alien,
and he shied away from it. It was just as strange to think of
Warreven as Stiller
seraaliste
:
it was odd to think that he might be negotiating with 3im
next year.

"You know 3im?"
Valmy asked.

The words were casual,
but the look that accompanied them was not. Tatian smiled ruefully. "I
literally ran into 3im
yesterday at the Courthouse. We talked--3e
gave me the name of a technician who might be able to work on my
implants."

"You've
been--running into--a lot of awkward people lately," Valmy said. "All
of them in trade."

Tatian sighed. "So
tell me about the fem."

"%er name's Astfer
Stiller," Jhirad began, and Valmy made an irritated noise.

"e'll give you
clan and kin before e answers your
questions. You've been on Hara too long, Stevi."

"%e's a
paralegal--an advocate of sorts, but trained to handle Concord law,
too," Jhirad went on, as though e'd
never been interrupted, "%e's a known member of the New Agenda
movement, and %e's been doing work for Haliday on trade cases."

"Which one is New
Agenda?" Tatian asked.

"They propose that
the Centennial Meeting be asked if Hara should rejoin the Concord as
a full member world," Valmy said. "And they really don't
like Tendlathe. It was New Agenda members who stood up in the Watch
Council and said he shouldn't be confirmed as Temelathe's heir."

Tatian whistled softly.
That had taken courage, and it hadn't done any good: Tendlathe's
status had been officially acknowledged the year he himself came to
Hara.

"You begin to see
how it all fits," Jhirad said. "This may be about trade,
about one emigration case, but there's a whole lot of other things
connected to it. And because of that, we--the IDCA, and through us,
Customs and maybe even ColCom--have a chance to get some real
influence on the government here. I'm asking you to ask Reiss to
withdraw his statement."

Damn
.
Tatian shook his head slowly, knowing only too well how Reiss would
respond to that request.
I'm
going to murder the little bastard for getting me, the company, mixed
up in this...
"And what happens to what's-his-name,
the guy who wants to emigrate, if Reiss agrees? It's going to
matter to him."

Jhirad looked away.
Valmy said, "I don't know. I can't promise anything, Tatian.
But if it comes up now, with Reiss's name on it, our bosses are
going to push for a trade investigation of NAPD."

"And that's
blackmail," Tatian said.

"I suppose," Valmy
answered. "But that's how it's been put to me."

"This is not a good
time to play politics," Jhirad said, and pushed imself
slowly to is feet. "Unless, of
course, you're us. Talk to Reiss, Tatian. The worst of the pressure
should be off by Midsummer. That's not long."

"I'll talk to
him," Tatian said. "But I don't make any promises."

"Fair enough,"
Jhirad said equably, and slid open the door. Valmy followed him out,
letting the door slide closed again behind her.

Tatian sat for a long
moment, staring at the pale cream fiber that covered the walls. What
Jhirad and Valmy were asking was technically illegal; more than that,
it would be hard to get Reiss to go along with it, even if he were
given a direct order to withdraw his statement. He, Tatian, would
have to invoke Masani's rules against trade, the threat of firing,
and he hated to do that when he knew perfectly well that Reiss wasn't
profiting from his games. On the other hand, he understood the
temptation IDCA was facing. To have the chance to intervene in Hara's
government, not just legally but actually at the Most Important Man's
personal request, was too good a chance to pass up. He sighed, ran
his hand, flat-palmed, across the shadowscreen to wake the desktop.
The IDCA agents were right when they said this was politically a
difficult time, and more than that, they were also right when they
hinted that NAPD was being dragged into trade. And that, the Old Dame
had made very clear, was not to happen. He would do what the IDCA
agents wanted, ask--no,
tell
--Reiss
to take back his statement, but he would do it because he could not
risk NAPD's becoming involved in trade.

Wry-abed
: (Hara)
the politest colloquial term for men who prefer to have sex
with men and women who prefer to have sex with women.

Warreven

The cellar room was cool,
pleasantly dim, the pinlights arranged across the ceiling in patterns
to mimic the stars. It wasn't much of an illusion--the heavy beams
that supported the dance floor broke the pattern, distorted it into
odd geometry--but the steady pounding of drums and feet made the
lights tremble like stars seen through atmosphere. Warreven grinned
at the thought and earned a glare from Haliday, sitting across from
him in the other corner of the private cubby.

"Relax, Hal,"
Malemayn said, and reached for the jug of nightwake that stood in the
center of the table. He refilled the five cups, leaving the sixth
still empty, and looked at Warreven.

Before he could say
anything, however, the off-world woman at his left said, "Damn Shan
Reiss anyway. There isn't time for this."

The man beside her
growled agreement, and then looked embarrassed, picked up his cup and
drank to hide his uncertainty. Warreven watched him, still not
certain what to make of him. Destany Casnot seemed very ordinary to
be the cause of all this trouble, a big, light-skinned herm, who had
once been flashily handsome but had settled into the thick-bodied
Casnot middle age. It was hard to imagine that he had done trade;
harder still to imagine what 'Aukai saw in him that made her want
to bring him with her into her exile. Warreven glanced at his hands,
folded on the tabletop, in the overlapping circles of light, seeing
dirt under the broken fingernails. Reiss had said that Destany had a
mairaiche
, a
truck garden, of his own in the scrub outside the city, between the
Bounder Road and the hills; why anyone would give that up, the rare
security of cultivation, was more than Warreven could understand. And
to give it up for Timban 'Aukai--

"We know," Haliday
said, and managed to sound almost convincingly soothing. "He'll
be here." Ȝe looked at
Warreven then, too, and he sighed.

"I talked to him this
afternoon. He said he'd come."
After
I invoked his clan, our shared Watch, and a few summers screwing
around with him in Irenfot
, he added silently,
but
he did say he'd meet with us
. Haliday was looking at him
as though 3e'd read his
thoughts, and Warreven looked hastily at the time display over the
street-side door. "It's only just time."

Haliday made a face,
and the woman said again, "I don't have time for this."

Warreven glanced at
her. The years had not been particularly kind to Timban 'Aukai, and
she had not been beautiful to start with, a rangy, raw-boned woman
who wore exaggeratedly tight-waisted clothes to keep from being
mistaken for a mem. She was still wearing the clothes, a wide belt
cinched painfully tight over a flowing shirt that seemed meant to add
bulk at the hips, but her once-fine skin had been coarsened by the
Haran sun, and there was a scar along her jaw where a sun-tumor had
been removed. 'Aukai looked back at him, her pale eyes--an odd,
off-world color, gray like winter clouds--flicking up and down in
automatic assessment. It was an expression Warreven remembered all
too well--he was probably meant to remember, he told himself, and
met her stare without flinching.

The music, drums and
whistle, was suddenly louder, and Warreven twisted in his chair to
see Reiss coming down the stairs from the dance house overhead. One
of the servers intercepted him, saying something in a voice too low
to be heard over the drumming, but Reiss shook his head, gesturing to
the table. Malemayn lifted a hand, and the off-worlder came to join
them, dropping into the remaining chair.

"Sorry I'm late,"
he said cheerfully. "Hope you haven't been waiting long." He
poured himself a glass of nightwake without waiting for an invitation
and smiled guilelessly around the table, not quite meeting anyone's
eyes. Haliday's frown deepened, and Malemayn laid a hand on 3er
elbow, signaling silence.

Destany said, "You
know the situation, Reiss. How can you back out now?"
On
me, your clan-cousin--your adopted clan, that took you in
:
he didn't have to say any of that, and even in the dim light,
Warreven could see the color rising in Reiss's cheeks.

"I don't have a
choice," Reiss said, still in that too-bright tone that masked
embarrassment, and Warreven leaned forward before anyone else could
speak.

"'Aukai's right,
we don't have time for this. Tell them what you told me, Reiss."

Reiss glanced at him,
the blue eyes, foreign eyes, like 'Aukai's conspicuous even in
the relatively low light. When he spoke, the false brightness had
utterly vanished. "I don't have a choice, not if I want to keep
my job. IDCA came down hard on my boss, and he told me flat out,
withdraw the statement, or I don't work for him anymore. I'm
sorry, Destany--" For the first time, he looked at him directly,
Casnot to Casnot. "--but I'm not risking my residency."

"You were born here,"
Destany said.

"I was born in
Irenfot," Reiss said. "You know that. No offense, Stany, but I
don't want to go back there. If I lose my job, that's the only
place I've got legitimate rights."

"They can't hold
you to that," Haliday began, and Reiss laughed.

"Can't they? I'll
have pissed off IDCA, and they have final say here."

"Or if they do,"
Haliday said, with dignity, as though 3e
hadn't been interrupted, "you can fight it."

Reiss shook his head
again. "They're making this into a question of trade. I can't
fight that--I've played around too much, they make an issue of it,
they can get me for that. I'm sorry."

"Why in all hells are
they so concerned about trade now?" Malemayn said, then made a face
and answered his own question. "Because it's us, and everybody
knows we're looking for a case to challenge the trade system."

"This wasn't it,"
Haliday muttered. Ȝe
sighed, and looked at 'Aukai. "Maybe you'd--Destany'd--be
better off with another set of advocates."

"Do you think it
would help?" 'Aukai asked, and Malemayn shook his head.

"Probably not, unless
you can get another off-worlder to swear for you. Or if Reiss changes
his mind."

"Reiss is kin,"
Destany said flatly. "I don't know off-worlders anymore."

"All I ever wanted
was for Stany to be with me," 'Aukai said quietly. "Either for
me to stay, or him to come with me. You wouldn't think it'd be
that complicated."

Well,
yes, I would
, Warreven thought.
You've
run trade out of your shop for close to a local decade, you can't
expect IDCA to do you any favors now
. He said nothing,
however, leaning back in his chair as Malemayn turned to Reiss.

"Do you think it
would make a difference to your boss, to IDCA, if we weren't
involved?"

Reiss shrugged. "I
have no idea. Look, I don't know what's really going on, any more
than you do."

"If it did, would you
make your statement again?" Malemayn asked.

"Absolutely," Reiss
said, and glanced at Destany. "I don't want to back out on you,
on my obligations. I know what I owe Casnot, it's just--I don't
have any choice."

"We could ask
Langbarn to take over," Malemayn said, and Haliday snorted.

"He's--e's
still a mem, no matter what e calls
himself. The courts won't like it."