Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction) (45 page)

Warreven's gaze
flickered, but 3e answered
steadily enough, "I already tried fighting him, and look what
happened. I don't know how to fight the
mosstaas
,
I don't know if we can fight the
mosstaas
,
and not all the
wrangwys
were on my side to begin with. Now they certainly won't be, and
you'd need all of us, and the Modernists and some of the
mesnie
s
to beat Tendlathe now. There's no chance of any compromise if I'm
here--Tendlathe is stupid enough, no, angry, enough, to make a
martyr of me, and that would mean there'd be no way to get the laws
changed. Not to mention that I have no desire to be a martyr."

"What about
Temelathe?" Tatian asked. "Are you going to let him get away with
that--killing his own father, for god's sake?"

"Do you think I have
a choice?" Warreven shook 3er
head. "It would be my word against his, Tatian--nobody else is
going to come forward, no matter what they saw, not if it means
speaking against the Most Important Man--and people will believe
what they want to believe, anyway. It won't do any good."

"But he won't
revise the laws," Tatian said again. "And the Modernists won't
push him on it, we saw that last night. Which still leaves people
like you--the people you said you were speaking for last night, damn
it--outside the system. Not quite human, you said that yourself."

"And I don't have a
side anymore," Warreven answered. "As you said last night."

"Haliday, for one,
and what's-3er-name,
Destany," Tatian said. "Aren't they your side?"

"Hal has money, too,
and 3e's in the
off-world hospital," Warreven said. "Malemayn can take care of
3im until 3e's
well enough to decide what 3e's
going to do--and Mal can take care of Destany's case, too, for
that matter."

"Can he?"

"He'll have to,"
Warreven answered. "Do you really think it'll do either one of
them any good to have me around? It'll be hard enough to
disassociate me from the case--I doubt Mal can win it, now, though
maybe he can get Destany off planet as a refugee, ask for asylum, or
something."

Ȝe
shook 3er head. "I don't
want to abandon them, Destany or Haliday--especially Hal--but I
can't help them now. I can only hurt them at this point."

"You can't just
walk away," Tatian began, and broke off, shaking his head in turn.

"Watch me,"
Warreven said. Ȝe took a
deep breath. "For what it's worth, I didn't say how long I'd
stay away." Ȝe caught
3er hair, wound it into a
loose twist, then seemed to realize what 3e
was doing and released it. "But right now--I opened a door, all
right; it just wasn't the one I thought it was." Ȝe
smiled suddenly, almost whimsically. "Which I suppose is typical of
Agede, when you think of it. But if there's a door open at all, any
chance not to get more people killed, then I've got to take it. I
could maybe try to be a demagogue, lead the
wrangwys
in rebellion, but I didn't exactly do it well last night. Look,
Tatian, we don't have a tradition for this, for revolution--we
don't even have a word for it, like we don't have a word for
herms, and I don't know how to make one happen. We've got plenty
of words for protest, for objections and obstruction and compromise,
all the subtleties of ranas and
presance
and clan meetings and the spirits and their
offetre
,
and I know how to do all of that. I've trained all my life to
manipulate that system, and it's not going to work this time. We
need something new--there's going to be a revolution, there's
going to have to be one now, because Tendlathe can't keep this
system stable forever, but I don't know how to make it happen.
Off-world, in the Concord--well, I can learn what I need there."

Tatian said, "Will
you?"

"I suppose I have to.
I opened the fucking door." Warreven made a face, reached for 3er
hair again, twisting the loose strands into a solid bar. After a
moment, 3e went on, in a
smaller voice, "And, yes, I'm scared, Tatian. It's not just
that I don't know what to do, or how to do it, which I don't,
but-- It's what I said, we don't have a word for revolution or a
word for herm, and I'm sup- posed to invent both of them. I've
been a man all my life--yesterday, I was still a man. Now I'm a
herm, and I don't know what that means, except that half my own
people say it's not really human. How in all the hells can I lead
anybody to anything when I don't know what I'm asking them to
become? I have to be able to offer something in place of what we've
got."

"You always were a
herm," Tatian said.

"Yes, but no one said
it." Warreven smiled. "As long as no one said it, it--I--didn't
exist. But now that it is said, nobody knows what should happen next.
And I can't act without knowing. I won't."

Tatian nodded slowly.

"And I'm sorry,"
Warreven said again, "that I dragged you into it. I didn't mean
to do that. Out of everything, I didn't mean to do that."

Tatian looked at 3im,
still in black from the night before, black hair wild, the bruises
still very evident on 3er
face beneath the dark bandage. He could see the shadow of the spirit
in 3im, could see, too,
the advocate he had run into at the courthouse. Behind 3im,
light gleamed around the edges of the shutters, and he was reminded
again of the people camped in the EHB court- yards. He still wasn't
sure it was right to leave them without a leader, was equally sure it
was wrong for Warreven to stay if 3e
didn't know what 3e was
doing. To stay was a man's solution, in the stereotypes he had
grown up with, to stay and fight. Maybe Warreven's way, the herm's
way, to retreat to try again, would work better, this time, in this
place.

"It's all right,"
he said. "You were right. That's all there is to it, really. It
didn't work--it was the wrong time or something. But you're
still right."

"I'll cling to that
thought," Warreven answered, but the twist of 3er
swollen mouth was almost good-humored. Tatian smiled back, and went
to the media center to begin arranging his own departure.

They left for the
starport in the first of the pharmaceuticals' convoys, crammed into
the cargo compartment of a six-wheeled triphibian along with a man
and his two children and their lug- gage, and a trio of technicians,
two off-worlders, a woman and a mem, and a fem who looked at least
part Haran. There were more Harans in the other vehicles, and more
families: hardly surprising, Tatian thought, shifting on his hastily
packed carrycase. The companies were evacuating their most vulnerable
people. Warreven had thrown a
shaal
over 3er head and
shoulders, sat hunched in the corner of the compartment where 3e
could see out the tiny viewport, but Tatian could tell from the
sidelong glances that the others had recognized 3im.
The father frowned, looked as though he might say something, but
Tatian fixed him with a glare, and he subsided. Then one of the
children tugged at his arm and he bent to listen to the question.

"--Mommy coming?"

"As soon as she can
finish turning over the department," the man answered, keeping his
voice soothing with an effort.

"NeuKass thinks it's
that bad, then?" one of the technicians asked, leaning forward on
the starcrate %e was sharing with the mem, and the man nodded before
he thought.

"We're just taking
precautions," he corrected himself, and nodded toward the children.

"Sorry," the tech
said, and leaned back again.

Tatian looked toward
the viewport--really more of a strip, a narrow band of armorglass
set into the wall of the cargo compartment to let the loaders check
the cargo--as the triphibian tilted. They were creeping up the long
ramp that led to the port road's elevated section, and he could see
past Warreven's shoulder into one of the markets. It was busier
than he'd expected, the central area actually crowded, and then he
saw the four-up parked beneath the mural of the spirits, and the
mosstaas
milling
on the ground beside it. On the wall above them, Madansa poured her
bounty from outstretched hands, but Agede and Cousin-Jack stood to
either side, offering their blessings as well. Agede, unmistakably,
had Warreven's face, and a herm's breasts had been sketched,
crudely, on the painted chest. Tatian blinked, and saw a group of
workers raise a ladder under the
mosstaas
'
supervision. One of them began to climb, dragging a scrubber and its
hose, and then the triphibian lurched forward, cutting off his view.

"How the hell did
they do that so quickly?" he said aloud, and Warreven looked at
him.

"It's easy enough
to catch an image from the narrowcasts, use it to make a transfer. We
used to do it for elections, things like that."

The Haran technician
glanced sideways at 3im,
cleared %er throat. "Mir--serray, I mean?"

Warreven tilted 3er
head. "Æ?"

"Will you come back?"

Warreven smiled, the
same odd smile 3e'd worn
the previous night. "Yes. Will you?"

The technician nodded,
touching %er lips in automatic reverence, then blushed and looked
hastily away. Warreven blinked, 3er
smile changing again, becoming more human, and 3e
resettled 3imself against
the wall of the compartment.

They reached the port
without incident, joined the lines of people hauling their baggage
from the entrances to the boarding hall. All the gates were open, and
the lines stretched back into the main lobby. Tatian glanced at the
overhead screens, noting the extra ships--
Perseus
,
converted from freight to passengers by its parent company;
Djinni
,
due in orbit by midnight, diverted from Esperanza; and half a dozen
others due in over the next few days--and wondered what Warreven had
had to pay to get his berth. He himself would be sleeping in a port
cubicle for the next two nights, until NAPD's
Polarity
made orbit, but Warreven had managed to get a cabin on the
Djinni
.

"So--" he began,
not knowing how, or whether he wanted, to say good-bye, and a voice
called from across the crowd.

"Warreven!"

"Malemayn."
Warreven held out both hands to the approaching figure. "How's--"

"Hal's safe,"
Malemayn said, almost in the same instant. "In the port
hospital--Oddyny was right--and 3e'll
stay there as long as needed."

Warreven's unbandaged
eye flickered closed, and Tatian heard 3im
sigh deeply. "Thank the spirits."

Malemayn nodded. "I
brought what I could," he said, and set an ordinary-looking
carryall on the tiles at Warreven's feet. "The
mosstaas
sealed your flat."

"Tendlathe's a
petty bastard sometimes," Warreven said.

"And I thought you
might enjoy this." Malemayn held out a quickprint sheet, another
image of Warreven as Agede, firelit from the night before. Seeing it
over 3er shoulder, Tatian
had to repress a shudder, remembering what had followed. "These are
all over the city."

"Thanks." Warreven
took it, folded it carefully and tucked it into a pocket. "Will you
be all right?"

Malemayn nodded. "For
a while, anyway. There's going to be hell to pay, Raven, there's
no way out now."

"I know." Warreven
waved 3er hand, the
gesture taking in the off-worlders filling the lobby and the boarding
hall. "So do they."

"You should get in
line," Tatian said. "It's going to take a while to process
everybody, and you're going to have to pass the IDCA screening."

Warreven nodded. "I--
Thank you. I owe you--not least for being the only reasonable man in
Bonemarche, these last few days. I won't forget." Ȝe
hesitated, and Tatian held out both hands. After everything, it felt
foolish to part with a mere clasp of hands. They embraced, cautiously
because of Warreven's bruises, and Tatian was startled again by the
wiry strength of the body under his hands. Then Warreven released
him, gave him one of 3er
sudden smiles, genuinely amused this time, and turned and walked away
across the lobby. Malemayn followed 3im,
lifting his hand in farewell.

Tatian watched them go,
wondering what he'd seen started. It wasn't over, that much
seemed obvious: Warreven's Agede, the herm Agede, had caught
people's imagination, would become part of that spirit--would, in
Warreven's phrase, Hara's phrase, open the door. If nothing else
came of it, it was a beginning, and Warreven could claim that as a
kind of victory, imperfect and uncertain as beginnings always were.
And if in the Concord 3e
could find the ways to translate the off-world concepts, the five
sexes and the process of revolution, then 3e
would be the person who remade Hara. Even now, he couldn't entirely
doubt that 3e might do it.
One studied people like that at university, discussed motives and
tactics and plans; one did not drag them out of riots, or ride with
them to the starport, on the way to exile. Except that, this time, he
had. Tatian shook himself then. He had done what he could--what he
really had no choice but to do--and he had his own consequences to
face. But at least he was going back where he belonged. He lifted his
heavy carrycase, thinking of Jericho, of Kaysa, of all the sane,
ordinary people, and began walking toward the gates that would lead
to home.

GLOSSARY I:

Concord Worlds

bi
:
one of the nine sexual preferences generally recognized by Concord
culture; denotes a person who prefers to be intimate with persons of
exactly the same and one of the two "opposite" genders.

Big
Six
: the six major pharmaceutical companies that dominate
the Concord Worlds' trade with Hara.

cd,
concord dollar
: standard monetary unit among the Concord
Worlds; circulates in tandem with planetary currencies.