Here We Stand, page 54




“Of course.” It could take days. Nir-Tenbiku would have to find some distraction to stop him worrying about what might be happening at the other end. “I might venture outside the Quarter. I’ve been cloistered in here for too long.”
“I’ll get your security detail.”
“I was only thinking of going out in the carriage. Bas can drive me. Or I could drive myself, of course.”
Cudik looked as if he was going to give him the full personal security lecture, but he just bowed his head politely.
“Avoid the market. It’s extremely busy today.”
Going outside the Clerics’ Quarter was an expedition in itself. There was preparation required. It was impossible for Nir-Tenbiku to disguise the fact that he was Jattan, but he could still be anonymous because of the unfriendly sunshine in Esmos. Jattans had to shield their skin and eyes with a thick fabric veil, and once he did that, he looked like any other expatriate taking some fresh air.
Inside the official carriage — just a small vehicle, nothing ostentatious — he was legally still within the Clerical Quarter no matter where he went. He took his protected status with him. He could even walk around the streets safely, unrecognised even by those few who knew who he was, because Esmos was an orderly nation, and cities like Rouvele were the most orderly of all.
Rouvele seemed an unnatural place, too well-maintained and tasteful to feel friendly, a theatre set of a city. It very nearly was. It prided itself on being the home of Esmosi culture, and simply walking down the street was a performance in itself, and had to be done correctly. Nir-Tenbiku did his best to appreciate their culture, but he didn’t enjoy it as much as he enjoyed the monks’ singing at night. They meant what they sang with every fibre of their being. The theatre singers merely pretended.
He’d miss this place, though. In a way it had been his prison, but some people paid a small fortune to be isolated in beautiful surroundings. If he had to be exiled, this was a good place to think and plan without distraction. But it couldn’t continue. He was impatient to feel whole and part of his people for the first time.
He searched the anteroom to find a suitable scarf for his excursion, then spent a few minutes wrapping it around his head and shoulders. There was a trick to leaving enough slack in the fabric to create a peak to shield his eyes. Today he didn’t seem to be able to get it right, so he gave up and selected a protective visor instead. He’d take the processional route out of the city, the broad avenue flanked by monuments and scented trees, then return via the ruins of the ancient fortifications and spend some time walking through the alleys in the jewellers’ quarter. He was quite looking forward to it.
Bas hurried into the room at a fast walk. Nir-Tenbiku arranged his visor. “I won’t be long, Bas,” he said. “Is the carriage here already?”
“It’s the humans, Excellency,” Bas said. “The captain responded. She’s waiting.”
Nir-Tenbiku hadn’t expected such a rapid reply. It could have been a coincidence that she happened to be available, but she might simply have been angry and in a hurry to berate him. He took a breath and settled his mind.
“Please get Minister Eb-Lan for me,” he said. “I’d like him to hear this.”
It was bad form to keep Ingram waiting, so he’d have to start without Cudik present. Manners still mattered even with aliens who might not notice them. He went back to his desk to take the call, hoping the formal splendour around him would focus his mind on sounding statesmanlike. If he got this wrong, he couldn’t imagine the consequences.
“Captain Bridget Ingram,” he said. “This is Nir-Tenbiku Dals, Primary of Jatt in exile. I apologise for keeping you waiting.”
“Thank you for your courtesy,” she said. “My words are being translated for me because I don’t speak Jattan, and your words are being translated into my language, so I hope we can understand each other’s intentions. You may call me Captain. May I address you as Primary?”
He was caught off-guard by both her directness and her polished manners. He’d expected a cold reception, if not outright hostility. He also wanted to know how that translation system worked, but that would have to wait.
“Please do, Captain,” he said. “I welcome your call. I’m aware of what happened at your base. Gan-Pamas Iril sent a message and explained about the unfortunate death of your subordinate. I’m truly sorry. It should never have happened.”
“Then he was able to communicate with you in Esmos.”
So she knew. Humans seemed able to find out everything, but if she knew the Halu-Masset’s location, she also knew not to provoke the Esmosi.
“Yes. I don’t know how to properly show our regret for this tragedy.”
“Why did Gan-Pamas come to Opis? I know about the prenu.” The voice was measured and calm, offering no clues. “What made him think it was here?”
Opis. Opis? “Is that your name for the planet where your base is located?”
“It is.”
“I don’t know where he got his intelligence, Captain. Gan-Pamas was the Controller of Procurement, a minister in my government in exile.” Nir-Tenbiku now picked his words even more carefully. “He broke contact with us because he feared detection by Kugad or the Protectorate. But we knew he was looking for the warship taken from the Kugin shipyard. The prenu.”
“I’m aware that you’re arming yourselves for a war with the Protectorate,” Ingram said. “This is none of our business and we don’t want to get involved. We just want to be left alone. But there’s still the matter of my dead comrade. She wasn’t a soldier. We in the military treat the murder of unarmed civilians as the gravest crime.”
Cudik rushed in at that moment and stood in front of the desk, looking startled. Nir-Tenbiku gestured at him to stay quiet. It sounded very much as if Ingram knew the etiquette for resolving a wrong of that magnitude, then. She’d given Nir-Tenbiku the opening to state his explanation and offer recompense. Her teeriks must have advised her very well — or she’d somehow been observing Jatt more closely than he realised. It confirmed that these were armed forces from a capable and confident civilisation. And it was the worst possible luck to encounter them under these circumstances.
“If you tell me what would lessen your grief and understandable anger, I’ll provide it,” Nir-Tenbiku said carefully. Ingram probably knew the formal procedure. He’d stick to it. “We’re offering recompense.”
There was a longer pause than he expected. “Then I would like answers to more questions.”
“Only knowledge? We can provide many material things.”
“Just the truth, please.”
She didn’t even ask for a token offering to satisfy honour. She just wanted to know something. He had a feeling it would be military intelligence, and that would be awkward.
“I’m happy to answer, Captain.”
“Is the warship critical to your plans?”
She was certainly direct. He’d tell her what she probably already knew. “No, but it’s a matter of pride for the Protectorate. Their secret intelligence service commissioned it.”
Cudik gestured frantically at Nir-Tenbiku to stop. He’d said too much, perhaps, but it was true, and there was no reason for Ingram not to be told that they’d lost track of Gan-Pamas, or to discuss the incident itself. The humans knew what had happened to them. They actually had information Nir-Tenbiku needed.
“Lirrel killed my crew member,” Ingram said. So she knew the teerik’s name. Was there any detail she hadn’t extracted about the mission? “It was a particularly violent murder. We believed teeriks were peaceful. Do you know the reason for his behaviour?”
“No, I fear we don’t, Captain. Lirrel was increasingly erratic, but we didn’t think he was dangerous.”
“I thought only Kugin had teerik assistance. Do you normally work with teeriks?”
“Not at all.”
“How did you find him, then?”
Nir-Tenbiku wasn’t quite sure where her questions were leading, but he couldn’t refuse to answer them now. “I believe there was a mishap on a test flight. The Kugin thought he’d been killed along with the rest of the personnel on board. One of our patrols happened to find him in an escape pod.”
Another long pause. Perhaps the translation she was receiving was struggling with some of the words. It was foolish, but he still hoped Gan-Pamas was there, assisting her.
“Thank you for your explanation,” Ingram said. “I would ask you to stay away from Opis now and not attempt further surveillance. We will defend ourselves robustly if you do.”
“Captain, we meant no harm. We were looking for the ship and Gan-Pamas. His message said that we should at least try to make contact with you.”
“Why?”
“He thought it was worth establishing a relationship. Would you be willing to meet me to talk about our respective interests in this sector?”
Cudik put his hand firmly on Nir-Tenbiku’s arm and mouthed no.
“I think that would be ill-advised at the moment,” Ingram said. “There would be difficulties.”
“We could meet on neutral ground.”
“I regret we’re not willing to have contact yet.”
If she really meant to say yet and at the moment, then the door wasn’t completely closed. But she sounded as if she was bringing the conversation to an end, and Nir-Tenbiku still needed closure on Gan-Pamas.
“May I ask you a question, Captain?”
“Yes.”
“Is Gan-Pamas dead?”
“Yes, he was shot. I’m sorry. I wish we could have avoided it.”
Nir-Tenbiku had known it from the start, but that simple confirmation broke him. Asking for a favour when he was offering recompense was pushing the boundaries of etiquette, but if he didn’t do this, he’d never forgive himself.
“Can his body be recovered?” Just hearing himself say the words was agonising. Ingram could refuse, or perhaps his body had already been disposed of, but the last thing Nir-Tenbiku could do for his friend was to bring him home and eventually lay him to rest in Jevez. “Is it possible to repatriate him?”
He expected a long pause and he got it. He braced for a refusal.
“Was he your friend?” Ingram asked.
“Yes, he was. He was a patriot when it was very hard to be one.”
“Then I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll see if I can find a way to send him back to you that doesn’t compromise our security. We’ve respected his remains. This is important to us as warriors.”
Of all the things that had surprised Nir-Tenbiku about humans today, that was the biggest revelation. The conversation had been polite but distant, and he hadn’t expected a single concession. The absence of raging threats was remarkable enough. But Ingram seemed to want him to know the kind of culture he was dealing with, and that it had standards she expected from others as well.
“Captain, is there anything else you want to know?” he asked.
“That answers my questions, thank you,” Ingram said. “We’ll speak again about the repatriation. Goodbye.”
The link closed. Nir-Tenbiku sat in silence for a moment. Cudik was still staring at him as if he wasn’t at all happy but couldn’t bring himself to say so.
“I know you would have handled that differently, Cudik,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “But what’s done is done. That was a civilised discussion. It could easily have been the start of a war.”
“Primary, we’re not going to make allies out of them,” Cudik said. “I’d advise not provoking them further. They might be polite now, but I doubt we’ll get away with it twice.”
“She didn’t sound like she wanted conflict.”
“Yes, but the repatriation might be a trap. Your guard’s down. She asked if Gan-Pamas was your friend. That’s what I’d ask if I were looking for weak spots, so be very careful. I know I can’t stop you agreeing to this, but there’s absolutely no reason for humans to be conciliatory towards us after what happened. They have a motive.”
“We all have a motive.” Nir-Tenbiku closed his eyes for a few moments. His waking dream had told him to be bold. What he’d done had nothing to do with that, but it still seemed like sound advice. “Would you have been able to sleep soundly if I’d left it at that and never asked, never tried to find out what happened to Iril and bring him home? Because I couldn’t.”
He couldn’t sit here and wait, either, and he wasn’t ready to abandon contact with the humans. It was unwise to judge any species by one example, but these people were nothing like the Kugin or even the Esmosi. There was restraint in there, but also courtesy, and respect. He had to look Ingram in the eye before he took her literally and avoided humans forever.
“I’m going to Opis,” he said.
“Primary, you’ve lost your mind. Do not do this.”
“I have to. I have to talk to them in person.”
“Ingram made it clear they would use force to stop us landing on the planet.”
“Opis. They call it Opis.”
“This is suicidal. They will kill you. How do they plan to return Gan-Pamas’s body? Where will they bring him? They’re trying to fix a position for an attack.”
“I’ll see what they say. And if they do kill me, Cudik, I appoint you to take my place and continue the fight.”
“But I can’t take your place,” Cudik said. “Without a Nir-Tenbiku leading this, there’s no legitimacy, no direct link to the Protectorate’s coup. Your grandfather’s name is how we demonstrate to the people that we’re restoring the democracy and the freedoms taken from them. I can perform the tasks, but I can’t inspire a population to rise up and support us. You can. You’re the heir to Nir-Tenbiku Bac.”
“And that’s why I’ve got to do this,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “A name isn’t enough to sustain us if we succeed. Once we take back Jatt, we still have a long battle ahead of us. I have to bring something extra to the table, something that’s going to make a real difference to Jatt’s future.”
Cudik looked exasperated. “Your problem, Primary — and I mean no disrespect — is that you assume everyone is as honourable as you are until proven otherwise. You’re like your grandfather. You believe in fairness and expect everyone else to as well.”
“I’m naive, you mean.”
“Yes. There’s not much difference between naivety and honour when you insist on being a good person in a bad world.”
The Kugin often mocked Jattans as hot-heads who rushed into situations and got themselves killed. Nir-Tenbiku didn’t see himself as that kind of Jattan, today’s undisciplined and unprofessional officer class, but he did wonder for a moment if there was a grain of truth in it. Here he was, having had an excessively frank conversation with a human commander and learned too little about humans in the process, deciding to ignore their warning not to visit Opis. Caution had abandoned him.
No: he had learned something about humans.
He hadn’t asked Ingram the important strategic questions about where they’d come from and what they planned to do here, but he’d discovered something fundamental about their mentality. Like Jattans — proper Jattans, his kind of people — humans cared about the reverent handling of the dead, even of enemy dead. Ingram had agreed to try to get Gan-Pamas home, and Nir-Tenbiku believed she was sincere.
He felt he could do business with her to Jatt’s advantage, and he was ready to risk his life to do it.
“Naivety it is, then,” he said. “I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. And if I’m wrong, I’ll pay the price, and the restoration of the Jattan government will be in your hands.”
* * *
CO’s office, Joint Command members present:
1120, October 30, OC.
Ingram leaned back in her seat, smoothing her hair as if she was trying to look nonchalant after a fight.
“At least we haven’t declared war on each other,” she said. “But did that get us anywhere?”
For a few minutes, Solomon felt he’d forgotten where he ended and Ingram began. Now she was speaking for herself without the AI translation rendered in her voice. It wasn’t the first time he’d recreated someone else’s voice to make a critical call, but it felt strangely intrusive doing it with Ingram’s.
“Sol did a great job,” Trinder said. “It really sounded like you, Captain. Even with all the trills and burbles.”
“But Nir-Tenbiku didn’t ask about the ship at all. I guarantee they’ll have another crack at it later. He was just sounding us out. He didn’t even mention the teeriks, and he must know they’re here.”
Searle shrugged. “Or maybe he’s being careful because he thinks we’re the superior force. We might look like it from where he’s standing. He realises we know more about them than he expected and he probably thinks we know even more than we do.”
“You know what did work?” Marc said. “Agreeing to repatriate his mate. It could be a set-up for an ambush, but I think he’s telling the truth. He wants to do right by his friend the same way we would.”
“Just as well you stopped the medics making a mess of the body,” Chris said.
Marc fidgeted with his coffee cup. “I have my sensitive moments.”
Ingram started scribbling on her screen. Solomon knew her habits now. She used the stylus when she wanted to think and the keyboard when she’d made up her mind what to say, as if it was more permanent than handwriting.
“So let’s see what else we learned from all that,” she said. “One, teeriks can be unpredictable — helpful to have that confirmed. Two, Fred told the truth about Jattans having a blood money custom where they apologise and pay up. Three, Gan-Pamas got a message out after all — let’s work out how we missed it. Four, he was one of their ministers, not some dodgy gunrunner — killing a politician is an act of war in many places, but not here, it seems. And five — allegedly, Gan-Pamas wanted Nir-Tenbiku to open talks with us, because we’re so marvellous for some reason. Thoughts?”