Part 13

Terise

Terise stood in the doorway of the palace and surveyed the crowd. It was a clear day but windy; even in the sheltered square their blue and green scarves flapped and twisted on each gust. They looked like seabirds, she thought, swooping over cliffs, the swift lines of movement and the stillness beneath. The stillness of every member of ViaVera in the base camp, listening to Issa.

She could always hold them when she needed to, even when she was a tiny child. She must look like little more than that now, so thin and small in her habitual green, hardly human; their strength in weakness, their Caduca. Ladyani had taught her the words but she was the one who could speak them, who could take his plans and make them holy. She had always been able to do that.

‘Comrades,’ she said. The others used ‘brothers and sisters’, but it was understood that Issa never would. ‘I’ve asked you to come here to listen to me because I have to tell you something very important, something that will change everything. Some of you will have heard that we have been in contact with the blue people, the Chi!me. Their envoy is here on Ty to set up a meeting between us and the government, to help us settle our differences.’ The sneer in her voice was clear and a rumble of laughter spread around the square. Every eye was fixed on her. In the shadow of the church porch, Terise caught a glimpse of Ihanakan, apparently as intent as the rest. ‘To make peace. Well, we can show them what we think of their peace.’

***

She’d told the council they could not lose. That had been over a week ago, when the waiting ended, and even though they had debated it several times since, no one had been able to come up with any convincing arguments against it. Marius had been suspicious, Roberto and Sario cautious, Wolf detached as he always took care to be until the decision had been made. That was to be expected and Ladyani had had all the answers for them. But Terise, watching from her usual corner, had seen the excitement glimmering under the harsh experience in their faces.

It had been so long since they had done something really big, so long since they had had more than the occasional successful bombing to set against the years of attrition and gradual, grinding defeat. Airdrossa was the last of them. It had not had to be, but it was. They had sat in the camp and known, every one of them, every day, that the old way was over. They had lain, listless, outside their huts, wandered down to the river because they had not known what they could do next. They had waited for Issa to show them and now she had. How could they reject it? What would they have to replace it with? They had worked for so many years and had grown too old for longterm solutions.

***

‘The Chi!me say they’re here to bring peace,’ cried Issa to the crowd, ‘but that’s a lie. They’ve lied to Desailly, and like a fool he’s bought it. They’ve lied to everyone, but they can’t lie to me. Do you know why they’re here? They want this bit of space for themselves, to serve them. When Desailly gets to be President he’ll sell us to Terra and they don’t want that. They want to get rid of Desailly and they think we’re the ones to do it. So we’re going to go to the meeting, but we’ll let our blasters do the talking. Through the Chi!me we’ve got a big new shipment, better stuff than we’ve ever had before, and we’re going to use it. They’ve given us the opportunity by setting up this meeting and they’ve promised us that they’ll standoff while we do what we have to do. And what do we have to do?’

***

‘The Chi!me want Desailly gone, that’s the bottom line,’ Ladyani had said. ‘They don’t care how it’s done, but they can’t do it themselves. They’re the big UP guys, after all, they might rule the galaxy, but they have some sort of reputation, if only to their people back home. It’s how they work, they never go in straight if they can go in crooked, always through someone else. There’s loads of worlds they’ve done it on, you can look it up. They want to use us and we should let ourselves be used.

‘So what if they have their own agenda? So do we! They want Desailly gone, we want Desailly gone, our interests as far as that are the same. We get rid of him for them, they’ll show their gratitude and when the Chi!me are grateful, they really are grateful. They need someone to run this place for them, and who better than us? This is big, this is our chance. No more skulking in the highlands, waiting for our time to come, this is it. Make no mistake, if we do this right, come next year we won’t be fighting the government, we will be the government.’

‘Under the Chi!me,’ Marius had objected.

‘Yes, under the Chi!me. They’re not exactly going to let us loose, are they? Not immediately, anyway. But there are ways, governments have ways of getting what they want. Don’t we know it? If we accept the Chi!me for now, we can deal with them later. Pretend to be compliant now, and then we can shock them when we show just how strong we are, when it’s too late for them. Brothers, we have to be canny here. This is high politics; this is where we want to be. They are the Chi!me, yes. They are very powerful, very rich. But we, we are ViaVera.’ His eyes had been shining. ‘We are the true road; we know the way. Once we have what we want from them, we can defeat them, because we have passion and that’s the one thing they lack.’

***

‘What do we have to do?’ Issa repeated to the square. ‘We have to kill Desailly. That’s all we have to do and then the Chi!me will help us get everything we’ve ever wanted. It’s there, all that we’ve fought and died for, right in front of us and all we have to do is take it.’

She held it for a beat, assessing.

‘You know, I’ve been thinking ever since the Chi!me first came to us, what would Mara have done? She’d want us to get the scumbag that killed her, no doubt about that, but also she would want us to win this way. She always reached out to people, however different they were from us, she always said that even the most unlikely people have a use. Well, the Chi!me are the most unlikely people and they have a use. For the sake of everything Mara died for, we should let them think they can make use of us. I say we go for it, I say we take their weapons and we go to their meeting and we kill Desailly and we take back our country.’ Pause, beat. She raised her arms, holding them out as if she could embrace them all. ‘What do you say?’ The cheer, predictably, was deafening.

Issa smiled. ‘Good,’ she said when it had at last died down. ‘We leave in the morning. You’ll get your instructions tonight and no one is to leave camp until we’re ready to go.’

We can’t lose, Terise thought behind her. The Chi!me will back us. I won’t need the pardon now. No more spying. I wonder if this is what she meant, when she told me to get them to the meeting? I’ve kept my word; she might keep hers. It doesn’t matter, we’ll be in Airdrossa by Christmas, I won’t have to get him out. There was something strangely desolate in the idea, but she brushed it aside. I won’t have to get him out, it will all be alright, she told herself. I won’t have to do any more deals; I can be whole again. It will be alright.

She knew that Issa wanted her with her; the packing was already half done. She watched as the guerrillas clattered out in clumps, their excited chatter rising from the square like bird-song. Ihanakan detached himself from the wall of the church and slipped up to Issa. Terise couldn’t hear most of what they said, only his last few words. ‘My people are in place and we will bring you word, honored lady.’ He turned to go and, raising his head, caught Terise’s eye where she leaned against the door frame. He did not acknowledge her, merely looked for a long moment before moving away. He looked taller than usual and his skin shone bright green as if there were a lamp lit inside it. She supposed that even Ihanakan was excited too.

They left the next morning in the rain. The main party comprised Issa, Terise, Ladyani and ten of his most experienced squad as a guard. Fifty others, under the command of Wolf and Marius, were to travel down with them as far as the edge of the hills and would then be led to the meeting place via secret ways by Ihanakan and his people.

They could not prepare the ground beforehand, Issa had said, as it was certain that the government would check it. The security at the meeting would be tight, that was the agreement, and no weapons on either side would be allowed in. But the Chi!me had arranged the security and they would keep the government forces back while allowing the fifty-man squad of ViaVera to get in. With their Chi!me weapons, and the element of surprise, it should be enough. The Chi!me-hired guards would be looking the other way.

As they rounded the bend in the track, Terise looked back. The camp was still and huddled under wisps of cloud. If everything went well, she might not see it again. Roberto and Sario would be ordered to break it up and bring the rest of the guerrilla’s south. For a while there would be the huts as a reminder of their presence, but then the villagers would take the materials they wanted and the forest would eat them, and there would be nothing to show they had ever been there at all. It felt almost as if she would miss it. She sighed, and Ladyani swung round to investigate.

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing much. I was just thinking; in a few years you wouldn’t even know the camp existed.’

He considered this. ‘I don’t know. There’s a few babies in the villages might give you a clue.’

She pulled a face at him. ‘Well, I suppose there is always that.’

He slapped her encouragingly on the upper arm and lengthened his stride to catch up with Issa, out in front with one of the Jeba who had come in that morning. Behind the party, the camp faded into the cloaking rain.