Steel Rain (35 page)

Machiko has always been proud to have such a name. She has always felt that Machiko Combine is her own in as close and personal a way as her parents are her own. Yet, she has often wondered why her parents, her step-parents, would choose such a name for her. They are very loyal and honorable people and approve whole-heartedly of the New Way. However, their first loyalty is not to Nagato Combine, but to Nagato Corp, and that is perfectly natural, for they are both executives, but it does present a certain puzzle.

Why would they honor her with a name remembering so much of the ancient clans? Machiko has asked this a number of times. Always, the answers she received suggested that any reasons for giving her the name were considered only casually.

Now Machiko wonders if the answer kneels before her, with eyes bleeding drops of gold.

"You are a child of exchange," Sashi-san says softly. "My child. The adopted child of Nagato Combine. The first of many."

Machiko struggles to find some response. "You mean there are others . . . ?"

"Have you never marveled that so many elves, so many with capabilities like your own, should emerge from the ranks of Nagato Combine?"

For this, Machiko has no answer. The ranks of Nagato Combine include many thousands of people and many of them are elves. Machiko has never concerned herself with the precise figures or percentages because she is no statistician. She is a warrior, member of the Guard. That the GSG should be composed primarily of elves who are also physical adepts has never been anything but a source of pride in herself, in the Guard, and in Nagato Combine.

"You see yourselves as symbolic of the Chairman's New
Way, and indeed you are this, but this is not all you are. To those of Tir Tairngire, you represent Okido-san's commitment to his own principles. Wherever he goes, he walks with elves, he relies on elves for his safety, in plain view of the whole world. Few people know such commitment."

Machiko struggles to settle her spirit. She is not succeeding at this task. "What you are describing to me is not a plan, or a test. It is a program. A covert program of exchange."

Sashi-san bows in acknowledgment. "It was presented to me as a test. Later, it became apparent that more was involved."

"Why?" Machiko struggles to breathe, to breath freely. The dread and horror filling her belly rise into her chest, aching unbearably. "What savage mind could conceive of—?"

For a moment, she can say no more.

Sashi-san fills the void, using a voice grown as frail and tender as a reed. "The princes of Tir Tairngire take a long view. A dispassionate view. They gaze upon the world through the lens of the Promise and consider what must be done to preserve our land. They foresaw a time when our small land would be surrounded by many powerful enemies. They foresaw the inevitable, inescapable fact that we must know what our enemies intend. We must have information. They knew we must develop strong allies, and indeed our allies tell us much, but there is much that even allies such as Okido-san cannot tell us. We must have resources of our own, and some of our greatest resources are not elves, but norms. Adopted children. Norms raised and educated among elves. Norms loyal to the Promise. Norms as ardently loyal to Tir Tairngire as you of the Guard are loyal to Nagato Combine."

"And why would Honjowara
-sama
cooperate with such a program?"

"For all these same reasons. For the sake of allies and what allies may provide. For promises made and promises fulfilled. For the future. For all that he has ever hoped to accomplish and all that he dreams of one day making real." Sashi pauses to smile a pained smile, then adds, "The princes of Tir Tairngire may have once been in need of financial resources, but they are not without power. Arcane power. Power one might equate with the Great Ghost Dance."

The rationales do little to soothe Machiko's heart. The underlying cruelty of the exchange program hacks at her ruthlessly. Can there be anything more savage than to separate mother and child? What monster could conceive of such a program? It is heinous. Insidious. And yet the rational part of her mind whispers the words, Sashi's words, that seem so loathsome. What would she not sacrifice to defend the Chairman of Nagato Combine? Could the commands of duty ever be too great?

She does not know. Has no answer. She has lived all her life with duty at her shoulder, always at the forefront of her daily concerns. Is there anything she would not do? Can any person really know until they are put to the test?

The warrior's Way is death. The warrior must live as though she is already dead, her life already given up.

Wise words. Small comfort.

"Perhaps the norms are right," Machiko says, battling through the churning sea of her own emotion. "Perhaps we are heartless monsters. Nefarious schemers. We elves."

The suggestion seems to afflict Sashi-san more than anything thus far said or hinted at. She looks to Machiko with an expression like agony. She rises. She draws near a step at a time, reaching out, lifting her hands to Machiko's cheeks. For a moment, she gazes steadily into Machiko's eyes, and the air is full of the fragrant garden of her perfume, and the suffering inside her sloping almond eyes is like a gray pall of pain spreading to the horizon.

Then, she leans her head to Machiko's shoulder, standing perfectly still, all but her fingers. Her long slender fingers quiver like autumn leaves against Machiko's cheeks. "You feel betrayed," Sashi-san says at a whisper. "You feel only your own pain and it is right that you should. But, for one moment, imagine mine. Imagine all that I have missed, all that will never be again. Things too precious, forever lost. I beg you, please, to find something for me in your heart, something more than hatred and scorn."

It is difficult to decide how to react, to know what is right or wrong or merely humane. There is so much pain, so much unknown, uncertain. Machiko is not sure what she feels, except that it hurts. It hurts very deeply. "I do not know you," she says. "I do not know the first thing about you. I do
not even know where you live, in the Tir or anywhere."

"For many years," Sashi-san whispers, "I have lived in dreams. Immersed in dreams. Surrounded by dreams. But to you I have always been near. I have watched over you from the beginning. Often, in the night, I have thought, perhaps only hoped, that you could feel my hand, sense my presence. Perhaps I am a fool."

The words strive for an intimacy Machiko is not ready to face. She gropes for some reply, uselessly.

"So many things I could tell you," Sashi-san murmurs. "So many things come to my mind. When you were just a child, three norms attacked you in the street. And you were ashamed. For although you fought them off, you went home bleeding from the nose. You cried that night to Chizu-san, she you called mother, you cried that Kuroda
-kai
would not have allowed the bullies to hurt him. You wanted so desperately to be like him. How can I make you understand what this meant for me? Did you not think it remarkable when, a few weeks later, a dojo run by an elf, a master in the katana, opened just a block from where you lived? Did you not imagine that perhaps some unseen hand was at work?"

The incident was forgotten till this moment. The attack in the street. The surprise of the new dojo. All lost in time.

It is enough of a shock to force the words from Machiko's lips. "This is all very hard. I am very confused. My spirit is in turmoil. There is so much I do not know." And then, her heart compels her to add, "I do not mean to make you suffer."

"You are very strong," Sashi-san replies. "I am trying to act worthy of your respect. I do not have your warrior's discipline."

"I do not understand how you could wait so long," Machiko says. "Why do you come to me only now? How could Honjowara
-sama
—?"

Sashi-san gently takes her hands. "Please ... sit with me." It is not much to ask. They move to the small dais beside the bed of stones and kneel. There is just enough room for the two of them on the round cushion. Sashi-san spends some moments brushing at her eyes, perhaps strengthening her composure.

"We could not tell you," Sashi-san says. "A child could
not bear such news. The foundations of your world would have been crushed. You would have been torn with resentment, filled with bile."

"It is some years since I was a child."

"We have kept the truth too long. I see that now. Forgive me. Forgive both of us. Try to understand."

"What is there to understand?"

Again, Sashi-san, my features grow pained. "Your father can never truly be your father," she says. "In rare moments of privacy, perhaps. The world will not otherwise allow it. Okido-san dreams of a world in which racial hatred will finally glimmer and die, like the fading of a flame. But it is all he can do to hold his part of the world together. He has managed to bring together the clans of Nagato Combine because he is respected, because he leads the clans to honor, to the path of their ancestors. The traditional peoples of the clans accept his ideals and program regarding metahumans because of the great respect he has earned. Because in many ways he seems a traditionalist himself. He honors traditional ways. He has a traditional wife and children, all of them norms. His leading advisors are norms. Yes, he meets with a lady believed to come from the Tir, and perhaps she is somewhat more than a secret business contact, but this lady's influence, if any, is negligible and easily dismissed."

"Is it so easily dismissed?" Machiko asks.

Sashi-san lowers her face, brushes at her eyes. "It is as it must be. I cannot be his wife just as you cannot be his daughter. It would destroy all that he has built."

"Because we are elves."

"It is one thing to take an elf for a lover, another to have an elf for a wife, and another to engender an elf child. He would prove himself not merely a lover of elves but perhaps even an elf himself."

Honjowara
-sama
an elf? "That is not possible. Any mage—"

Gently, Sashi-san shakes her head. "Okido-san was born in the last year of the last century. Even to a mage, there is little difference between a true norm and one who carries the elf genes, one who is an elf but was born too soon for the elven qualities to find expression. Yes, the right mage might detect a difference, might see that Okido-san is purely a norm, but the point could never be prove absolutely. And a mere shadow of suspicion would bring everything to ruin. Surely you can see this."

Machiko, at this point, is unsure what she can and cannot see. Her thoughts are in as much turmoil as her heart. "And what of Kuroda
-sensei
? Why did he leave when Honjowara
-sama
called for you? Does he know the truth?"

"Kuroda-san is my brother. He came to Okido-san first as an emissary. For a time, he served as a spy. In time, he came to accept Okido-san's ideals as his own."

It is merely another shock atop other shocking revelations. "And are you here as a spy?"

Faintly, Sashi-san shakes her head. "I am here because my love and my daughter are in need, and you are in need of information I possess."

"What information?"

Sashi-san looks to Machiko with an expression of compassion and concern, and says, "It begins with your surrogate mother, Chizu-san."

"Yes?"

"As a young woman, she scored a five-plus on the Wachs-Chandler test. You know this, do you not?"

"Yes?" In fact, Machiko has known this for years. It was no secret. The Wachs-Chandler "test," really a series of examinations, was an early attempt by certain corps to evaluate the magical potential of employees and family members. It is a subject her adoptive mother has occasionally addressed with amusement. Her score of five-plus supposedly indicated that she has little magical potential herself, but could perhaps pass the ability to any children she might have. "What significance does this have?"

"Consider your own abilities," Sashi-san says softly. "Consider what would be required for any exchange of unborn to be equitable."

Machiko hesitates. What Sashi-san suggests is clear, but it does not seem possible. "My parents were desperate to have children. They would not have given up a natural child."

"After Chizu-san
's
third miscarriage, both your surrogate parents were keenly aware of the extraordinary measures Nagato Corporation, through its medical plan, was taking on their behalf, in the effort to give them children. When they were offered the chance to participate in the program of exchange, they felt an obligation, a duty. They felt they
could not refuse."

Machiko shakes her head. "I do not understand. With all the difficulties my mother has had with pregnancy, why would anyone choose her?"

"Because of Chizu-san's latent talent. Because advances in the medical arts made it seem likely that Chizu-san's next pregnancy could be aided to term successfully. And because of obligation. Others were approached, but they declined."

"So you are telling me that my parents did not choose to have me for a child? That they felt obliged?"

"Is there anyone whose motives for having a child are not complex? Please listen, try to understand. Your surrogate parents felt honored as well as obliged. They were perhaps horrified at the prospect of giving up their natural child. They were also proud of the honor offered to them. And when you were born, born of Chizu-san
's
own body, they felt love and joy. Do not ever underestimate how very much this means, that you emerged from Chizu-san womb. That you lived within her, developed from a small seed within her. Whatever her motives for consenting to the exchange, in her mind you became her natural child long before you were born."