Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction) (44 page)

There was news on every
narrowcast channel, though not the same pictures. He looked away,
feeling vaguely guilty, as though there was something he could have
done. And that, he knew, was stupid. Whatever he had done, Warreven
would have gone to the Market, would have made 3er
stand--and 3e had been
right, was still right about the laws. Nothing he could have done
would have changed that. Even so, he sat staring at the media center,
riot and fire filling the screen, until he finally fell asleep from
sheer exhaustion.

He woke to bright
sunlight coming in through the imperfectly shuttered window. He
winced, feeling the sweat on his skin, and pushed himself to his feet
to close the shutters, flicking the cooling system to full power as
he passed the control box. Outside the window, the broad wedge of
lawn between the buildings of the Nest was filled with vehicles and
people, indigenes in an even mix of traditional dress and off-world
clothes. Some would be company employees, of course, taking shelter
with their families, but it was obvious even at this distance that a
number of them were herms, fems, and mems. There were children, too,
lots of them, and someone--one of the companies, or maybe one of the
housing committees--had set up a table to feed them. Tatian shook
his head, and pushed the shutters closed.

The media screen came
back into focus as the light faded, and he worked the remote to bring
the voices up again. The Harbor Market filled the picture, empty now,
the stones soot-marked from the bonfire, the remains of the barricade
piled to one side of the Gran'quai. A drag engine was hauling away
the last balks of wood under the watchful eyes of armed
mosstaas
,
while in the background silver-suited firefighters prodded at the
remains of a large storage shed. That was the only thing that had
burned on the Gran'quai itself; Tatian was glad to see that the
docked ships and the factors' offices seemed untouched except for
the occasional broken window.

"--order was
restored," the newsreader was saying. "A few ranas remain active,
but the Most Important Man has vowed that they will be closed down by
noon. We have been asked to remind our viewers that all political
activity has been suspended until the crisis is over, and that rana
bands of any type have been explicitly prohibited until that time."

"Bastard," Warreven
said, from the bedroom doorway. Ȝer
voice was a little slurred, more from the swelling than the
aftereffects of either the sweetrum or the doutfire. "How bad is
it?"

"I haven't heard
yet," Tatian answered. "Last night, they were saying thirty
confirmed dead at the Market, and another dozen around the city. Plus
Temelathe, of course."

"Of course."

"Tendlathe moves
fast," Tatian said. It was probably better to get the worst news
over with. "Everyone's already calling him the Most Important
Man, and he's formally taking over tonight. There's an emergency
session of the Watch Council then."

"Bastard," Warreven
said again. "Not that I should be surprised." Ȝe
put 3er hand to 3er
bandaged eye. "I don't suppose you have any doutfire, do you?"

Tatian shook his head,
not for the first time envious of the indigenes' tolerance for
their extensive pharmacopeia. "The doctor left some pills. Ȝe
said you could take up to four at a time. They're in the kitchen."

"Thanks," Warreven
said, and disappeared through the door.

Tatian watched 3im
go, wondering what to do now. He would be recalled, unless Tendlathe
expelled him first--someone at the Harbor was bound to have
recognized him, and Masani would have to recall him, if %e wanted to
go on doing business with the Harans. However, he wasn't looking
forward to explaining this to %er, no matter how sympathetic %e had
been to the odd-bodied. As for Warreven... He shook his head.
Tendlathe was blaming 3im
for his father's death, and he doubted Warreven had enough support
left among the Modernists to have much chance of surviving arrest and
trial, no matter how many times 3e
swore 3e'd seen
Tendlathe shoot his father. Could the other odd-bodied, the
wrangwys
,
protect 3im? he wondered.
They didn't seem organized enough to offer much help, either
political support or physical protection, and he had a strong feeling
that the latter would be necessary. Tendlathe needed a scapegoat, and
Warreven was the obvious one. That left off-world, but there his
imagination failed him. He couldn't picture Warreven on any of the
Concord Worlds, part of Concord society: 3e
was too much of Hara. Maybe 3e
could head for the Stiller
mesnie
s
north of Bonemarche, he thought. Anti-Stane feeling might outweigh
everything else....

The communications
system sounded then, and he touched the remote, accepted the call
without thinking, expecting Isabon or Derebought. Codes flowed across
the screen--official codes, the codes for the White Watch House, and
he barely stopped himself from canceling the call. He had already
accepted it, already betrayed his presence in the flat; to refuse the
call would only cause more trouble. At least the Harans had no direct
power within the EHB compound, he thought, and braced himself to
pretend innocence. The screen lit at last, and Tendlathe's neatly
bearded face looked back at him, a narrow bandage running across his
forehead. At least Warreven marked him, Tatian thought, and looked
down. The reciprocal transmission was already established: too late
to do anything except brazen it out.

"Mir Tatian."
Tendlathe's voice was cold and very precise.

"Mir Tendlathe,"
Tatian answered. "What can I do for you?"

"You can stop playing
games," Tendlathe answered. "I want Warreven, and I have every
reason to think you have him. If you give him up, I'm prepared to
overlook your part in last night's fiasco."

"I don't have 3im,"
Tatian said. He heard a faint noise from the kitchen, suppressed the
desire to look, to wave Warreven back out of sight.

"I don't have time
for this," Tendlathe said. "You helped Warreven get away, you
were seen--you were filmed--doing it."

"Films can be
altered," Tatian said. "They're hardly evidence."

"They're evidence
here," Tendlathe answered. "And if it comes to that, I'll bring
NAPD down with you--I'll be sure they're implicated, as well as
you, in conspiracy and murder."

"Anything I did was
on my own authority. It has nothing to do with the company," Tatian
said, and Tendlathe gave a thin smile.

"I'm sure, but I
can make it look otherwise. And I will, if I have to. I told you, I
want Warreven very badly."

Tatian looked down at
the control bar, glyphs flickering at the edge of the screen. He had
no doubt that Tendlathe meant exactly what he said--and I should
have realized it, he thought, expected it--and he couldn't risk
NAPD's position on Hara. He had no right to jeopardize not only
everything Lolya Masani had worked to build, but Derebought and Mats
and Reiss, but at the same time, he couldn't give Warreven up. Not
now, he thought, and not to these people.

"Tendlathe."

Warreven stepped out of
the kitchen doorway, came slowly forward into the camera's range.
Tatian opened his mouth to say something, anything, to wave 3im
back, but one look at 3er
face silenced him. He stepped back against the window, feeling the
heat radiating from the shutters, wondering what Warreven thought 3e
could gain from this.

"Warreven,"
Tendlathe said, and there was a kind of grim satisfaction on his
face. "I knew you'd be there."

Warreven shrugged. "It
doesn't matter where I am, does it? You and I have a lot to talk
about--what's it like, Ten, being the Most Important Man?"

"It feels good, thank
you," Tendlathe answered. "It feels good to be able to deal with
you as you deserve."

"No matter how you
got there?" Warreven asked. "I didn't want him dead, and you'll
never convince anyone I did, not when it means you taking over.
Besides, I saw him die--I saw you shoot him, Ten."

Tendlathe's
expression didn't change. "No one's going to believe your
lies--"

"And I can't be the
only one," Warreven went on.

"The only thing that
matters now," Tendlathe said, "is where and how you surrender to
me."

Warreven managed a
sound that was almost a laugh, and Tatian could see the ghost of 3er
usual humor in 3er bruised
face. "The last thing you want is for me to turn myself in. That
would bring everything into the courts, including how and why
Temelathe died. Do you really want to open that door?" Ȝe
laughed aloud this time, sounding genuinely, incredulously, amused.
"God and the spirits, maybe I should. It might be worth it, to see
how you explain that."

"I can make very sure
you don't get a chance to talk," Tendlathe said.

"That's not much
incentive to surrender," Warreven answered, and there was a little
silence. Tatian looked from one to the other, from Warreven to the
bearded face in the screen, but couldn't read anything in their
expressions. Tendlathe's face was taut, muscles standing out at the
corners of his mouth; Warreven was still smiling faintly, hiding
behind 3er laughter.

"So what do you want,
Raven?" Tendlathe said at last.

Warreven took a deep
breath, and Tatian realized that this was what 3e'd
been waiting for. "I want this over," 3e
said. "So I'm prepared to make a bargain with you. Let me
off-world--I can claim asylum, I know that much about Concord
law--and I'll go, and not cause you any more trouble. You can make
whatever deals you want with Dismars, or whoever's speaking for the
Modernists now, and I won't interfere. But if you don't let me
go, I'll do my very best to make sure you not only have to fight
the whole question of gender law through every step of my trial, but
I'll make very sure that everyone knows you killed your father."

"No one will believe
you," Tendlathe said. "And you are responsible, Raven. None of
this would have happened if you'd kept your mouth shut."

"I opened a door,"
Warreven answered. "You walked through it."

For the first time,
Tendlathe flinched, the merest shiver of taut muscles, but Warreven
saw it, and smiled. "Plenty of people will believe me, Ten, you're
not universally loved. I can make your life impossible--even if we
can't fight you, there are enough of us
wrangwys
to guarantee you won't have an easy time running things."

"The Modernists won't
help," Tendlathe said. "Dismars has already disavowed your
actions."

"I'm not surprised.
Issued a bulletin from somewhere safe outside the city, no doubt,"
Warreven said bitterly. Then 3e
shook 3imself. "Look,
I'm offering you a way out, Ten. You can take what you've got,
pull things together, or you can get revenge. I'm prepared to give
you that. Either one."

There was another
little silence, and then Tendlathe smiled faintly. "Opening another
door?"

Warreven smiled back. "I
suppose, yes. And there is a price."

"Well?"

"Leave the
off-worlders out of this." Warreven tilted 3er
head toward Tatian. "This is our business, yours and mine."

"Mhyre Tatian was
seen helping you," Tendlathe said.

"So expel him, or
have his people recall him," Warreven said. "If you absolutely
have to. But let the company alone."

There was another
pause, longer this time, and then, slowly, Tendlathe nodded. "You
have twenty-six hours to get off planet, Warreven. After that, the
deal's off."

Warreven smiled thinly.
"Agreed." Ȝe looked
down then, looking for the remote, and Tatian touched the key that
ended the connection. The screen went blank, and Warreven took a deep
breath.

"Look, I--I'm
sorry to have gotten you into this. Of everything, I wish I could
have gotten you out clean. It's the best I could do--I think it's
the best anyone could do, and the company should be fine, but--"
Ȝe broke off again,
shaking 3er head. "I'm
sorry."

Tatian set the remote
carefully back in its niche, unable quite to believe what had
happened. "The--Masani was bound to recall me anyway, after this.
And we do a lot of business with a lot of
mesnie
s.
We should be all right."

"But will you?"
Warreven tipped 3er head
to one side.

Tatian took a deep
breath, overwhelmed, suddenly, by the possibilities. Will I be all
right? he wanted to say. I'll be better than all right: I can go
home--go back to Kaysa, back to Jericho, hell, I can even get my
damned implants fixed, and by technicians that I know will know what
they're doing. Even if Masani fires me--and I know %e won't--it'll
be worth it. He could already imagine Kaysa's response, laughter
first, at the absurdity of it all, and then the sudden fierce
embrace. She would be glad to have him back--that had been clear in
their last exchange of mail--but not half as glad as he would be to
be back with her....

"You didn't have to
get involved," Warreven said, "didn't have to do any of this.
I'm sorry."

Tatian shook his head,
responding as much to the pain in the other's voice as to the
words. "No. I--it sounds stupid, but I did have to help you, or
try to, anyway." He shrugged. "It's what I said last night,
you're right. What you were trying to do is the right thing. I
couldn't just stand there and do nothing. Sometimes you have to do
something."

"But your job--"

"Masani's not going
to fire me," Tatian said firmly. "As for leaving--I'm going
home, Warreven. I'm not sorry about that. What about you?"

Warreven laughed then,
not a pleasant sound. "I have money, and I can still get at it.
Tendlathe can't block the off-world bank networks without annoying
the pharmaceuticals even further."

"That wasn't
exactly what I meant." Tatian stopped, tried again. "What about
the gender laws? You started this. How the hell can you back out
now?"