Part 14

Quila

In the presidential palace, above the second staircase, was a ceiling which was nearly two hundred years old. Quila’s guide, a young guard with a single officer’s stripe on his sleeve, took care to point it out. It had been in the first palace, back when the colony had been founded, and had been the only part of the upper level to survive when the building was stormed by the army thirty years later. They had built the new palace up around it, and here it still was.

They stopped halfway up the steps to admire it. It was Neo Neo Classical, the guide said, a very important Terran style at the height of the Empire. It showed a middle-aged Terran woman, dressed rather inadequately in pale colored draperies, seated on a cloud against a lowering sky. In one hand she held an ear of a withered yellow plant, her other was stretched out in front of her.

She was, the guide said, an ancient Terran goddess of fertility. She was reaching out across the plaster for her daughter, trapped by eating fruit given her by the King of the Underworld. The daughter had once been on the other side of the stairs. Some people thought that at the top of the next flight a third painting had shown them reunited, but that was all gone. The goddess’s pink features were contorted in anguish, her plump arm lifting over the swirled paint sky into nothing. Quila asked, ‘Did she get her daughter back, in the story?’ but it was not the current religion and the guide did not know.

Almost because of the absence of anything to worry about, she was nervous about this interview with the President. It was, of course, strictly a formality, all the arrangements had been made weeks ago with Desailly and his people, and in two days she would be leaving for the summit meeting. She had been given to understand that the President did not permit long visits, she would probably be in and out in little more than the time it would take to greet him. He was an old man and all she had to do was tolerate him for a little while.

This wing of the palace was full of mid-afternoon torpor, dozing in its courtyard in the sun. No hurrying footsteps echoed in the marble corridors, no terminals whirred in the shuttered offices on either side. Unlike the previous occasions when she had been to see Desailly in the other wing, she and the guide could have been the only people in the place. Quila twitched the shoulders of her best jacket straight and followed the guide up the stairs.

***

He had them put his chair in the center of the room. They had not intended to; they had had a desk put in the corner for him to sit behind. It was better that the Ambassador did not see the hover chair, they said, but he had no truck with that. Juan Gutierrez had been and done a great many things in his life and he had never apologized for any of them. ‘Whether I can walk or not, I am still the President,’ he had shouted, and they had murmured back to him, soothingly, ‘yes, yes, you are still the President.’

Petrus had ordered them to humor him, like he did. He used to hate that. ‘Don’t humor me, damn it!’ he would yell, and Petrus would laugh and show his honest face behind his politician’s facade. But he was so tired now, so tired, it was too difficult to fight it any more. He was sinking into pillows and soft, soothing voices, struggling for the last time, drowning.

They had put him into his best coat, the military uniform with the general’s insignia and the medals of his youth drawn up in ranks across his chest. That one was for the revolt in Terra Nueve, that one the space battle with the pirates on the other side of Benan. The one on the end was for keeping order in Kayro, the year the rains failed. The bottom line was honorific, medals he had given himself, mostly, to commemorate this or that. He could hardly remember what. They had been necessary to impress people, to make a statement. He supposed the Chi!me Ambassador would be as impressed as anyone else.

The sun fell, slanting, across the room from the wide windows. He watched the dust motes dancing across the beams. In a little while it would be dazzling, but he was stranded in the center of the floor where there was nothing within reach to draw the curtains. He could call, of course. ‘If you had sat at the desk, you would have had the remote,’ they would say, as if to a small child, chiding. He sat still.

There were footsteps outside in the corridor, a whispered confabulation. They thought he was deaf because he was old. The door opened to admit a corporal in the uniform of the Presidential guards. He advanced just far enough into the room to be heard and clicked his heels together precisely. An exemplary young man, who should be promoted. He couldn’t remember his name.

‘Sir, may I present Ar’Quila, Ambassador of the United Planets, sir.’ He bowed.

Juan Gutierrez waved a hand. ‘Thank you.’

The corporal, still slightly bent from his bow, shuffled out of the line of the door. The Ambassador started the long walk into the room.

It gave him a chance to study her. They were strange people, these Chi!me. Not so much the skin color, he’d been around in his time and he’d seen far too many things to be fazed by blue skin, but their thinness. He’d always liked a woman with a bit of meat on her bones; these Chi!me were so slender they looked as if a gust of wind would topple them. Yet they were the ones with the wealth and the power, these tiny creatures that looked like Jeba. He had always thought, watching them, that the blue people were some slave race, impersonating the rulers of the universe. He smiled at the thought of it, of springing up from his chair and shouting, ‘I’ve unmasked you, I’ve got the joke, will the real Chi!me please come out!’

The Ambassador returned the smile. She stopped a few feet away from him. The corporal hurried up behind her with a seat. ‘Mr. President,’ she said. She held her hands out in front of her, palm up, then bent her head and sat. ‘I trust you are well?’

‘As well as I ever am.’

‘In that case, I am even more grateful to you for granting this interview. I did feel it was very important that I come to you in person before the meeting with ViaVera. Of course, all the details have been worked out with Mr. Desailly and his office, but I do think your blessing, as President, in such an important matter is vital. I am sure you agree.’

She had a very smooth voice, the Ambassador, lilting in and out without leaving a trace.

‘ViaVera, eh? Bunch of murderous gangsters, the lot of them. Petrus is too soft on them. Always has some plan. Should all be shot, that’s what I say. Never mind the messing around, should all be shot.’

‘I gather there are many who feel that way. I remember your General…Morales, is it, saying something very similar to me not many weeks ago. But shooting, as I am sure you know, only leaves the bereaved to shoot and be shot in their turn. We have another way. That’s why these talks are so important. If we can open up a dialogue between you and ViaVera, we may be able to end this without violence. Find out what the real problems are and address them. I am sure they are just as anxious as you for this all to end.’

She was a talker, all right, a politician. He’d never been a politician, never trusted words like he trusted a blaster. She talked and talked like she was enchanted with them, like they could change the world outside just by being said. He remembered people like that.

‘I remember the first time I ever heard Sept Karne speak,’ he said. He had the vague impression that he had interrupted her, but that didn’t matter. ‘In Keltan, it was, the year the rains failed in Kayro. Must be, ooh, thirty years ago now, more. He was just a professor then, no one special. They’d asked him to come and speak at one of the big price demonstrations. I’ll never forget it. There was a whole line of other people waiting their turn and he went on. It was an hour, hour and half and these people with all their little speeches prepared were standing there, hanging on every word.’ He chuckled. ‘Some of them must have been so mad inside, but they had to keep on looking keen or the crowd would have throttled them else. They couldn’t have held them like he could, though. Never been no one could hold a crowd like Sept Karne.’

‘I’ve never heard any of his speeches,’ the Ambassador said. ‘I’ve only ever heard his daughter.’

‘Mara? Ah, yes, well, Mara was a different thing altogether. Sept Karne, he was all for reform. Make it fairer, make the system work better, whine along with the whiners, that was his line. He could tell you for hours everything that was wrong with everything. He always knew every detail, how much you had to pay for a doctor in Ultima, price of chari flowers. He was a professor you know? Details were what he did. Now, Mara, she never wanted to reform anything. Smash it up and throw it away, that was more her thing.’ His cracked voice lifted, high and mocking. ‘The glorious revolution of the people!’ He burst into a paroxysm of coughing.

When it had subsided, he remarked, ‘I saw her once, you know. We let them out, her and her mother, to bury him. Her mother was all tears and screaming, you know how women do. Always was a silly woman, Harana. Pregnant, too, right out to here, looked like she was going to drop it right in the grave. Mara was only a girl then, sixteen maybe, but she didn’t cry, not her. She didn’t touch her mother either, she just stood there, and I thought, that’s a hard little bitch.’ In a voice tinged with admiration, he added, ‘And I was right. Reform wasn’t enough for her, not after what happened to her daddy. Her and the other one, but her I never saw…’ He stopped as another bout of coughing shook him.

‘Well,’ said the Ambassador, ‘I hope that will convince you, if nothing else, that it’s worth giving peace a try. Isn’t it time to talk?’

She was persistent, he would give her that. ‘Oh, you can talk all you want,’ he laughed, ‘if they’ll listen! I’ll give you my blessing, if that’s what you want, if that’s what Petrus sent you for. You can go and have your talks, my dear, go and have as many talks as you like. If you can make them listen!’

‘I’ll make them listen.’

She got up and stood there looking down at him. There was something stern in her expression, something cold and unbending on the small, thin face.

‘I don’t apologize,’ he said, suddenly. ‘I’m not ashamed.’

‘I know. You kill each other and kill each other, and after all of it you’re not ashamed and neither are they. And we are not ashamed of making you talk to each other and finding out how similar your interests really are. Thank you for your time, Mr. President.’

She turned and walked to the door, her heels clicking sharply on the tiles. The sun from the windows licked the brow of his cap. He fumbled in his lap for the button which would bring them running to take him to bed.

***

The same guard took her back through the silent halls to where Par’Lennan’s staff would pick her up with the transport. Even she, unwilling as she was to hide behind an entourage, had seen that she could not walk to her presidential audience on her own. The drawback, of course, was that it did mean more waiting around. The guard, apologetic, had offered her a seat and a drink, but she preferred to wait outside. The desolate air was less pronounced on the ground floor, where at least half of the rooms off the corridor seemed to be in use, but it was still not somewhere she wanted to linger.

She stared across the broad expanse of the courtyard, shielding her eyes from the sun. A tall, slight figure rounded the corner of the building, heading for the top gate. Silhouetted against the sinking light, he was still unmistakable.

‘Fairo!’ she called. ‘Over here.’

He was walking quite fast towards the gate and she was sure he paused. She saw his foot suspended for a moment off the ground, saw his head turn. Then, stiff-shouldered, he went on. ‘Fairo!’ she shouted again. She could not believe that he was trying to ignore her, but she could not quite keep the amused surprise from her tone. ‘Where are you going? Come here!’

She started to run after him. He turned his head, peered as if making sure who she was, then waved. She stopped running and let him walk up.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t hear me,’ she said. ‘I thought I was going to have to chase you all across town. What are you doing here? I didn’t think you had a meeting today?’

‘Oh, Agana wanted to go through a few things, last minute details. You know.’

‘Any problems?’

‘No, it’s fine. Agana’s very capable.’

‘Good. Then you can relax, and come back with me in Par’Lennan’s marvelous transport. No,’ she chided as he started to protest, ‘no arguing. You’ve been working just as hard as anyone else on this, you deserve a bit of luxury. Come on.’

He seemed perfectly composed, but his face she thought was a little pale. He had been working too hard. She slipped a proprietorial arm through his.

You know, I think I feel more optimistic now than I have done at any time before,’ she said. ‘I mean it. I mean, I’ve always believed in our mission, but now I really feel like we’re part of something much bigger here. Like my meeting today… he’s a dreadful old man, the President, all hunched up in his crimes like one of those armored insects that live in sand holes. He’s what this place used to be, he’s the past. Desailly might have his faults, but he’s not like that. He believes in dialogue, in politics, if you like. They’ve gone from people who could only communicate through killing to people who are prepared to talk to each other. That’s such progress. And if they can get there without us, well, what can they achieve with us to help them along?’

The transport had arrived and stood before them with its side open for them to climb in. She let go of Du’Fairosay’s arm, lifted her face to the sky. As if addressing an invisible crowd, she beamed at the courtyard and said, ‘We’re going to do it. I really, really believe we are going to do it.’

***

Du’Fairosay had waited until she’d left their office in the transport before he’d followed her to the palace. It wasn’t that it was a problem, of course. He had any number of reasons he could give for going out, but he didn’t want to see her. He hadn’t planned to have to do this. All the arrangements had been made at a distance, after the initial meeting, and she had done that herself. But there was no avoiding the summons.

‘By the way,’ Agana had said, ‘the boss wants a word before you leave. Tomorrow, if possible.’

He hadn’t asked for what. ‘Alright, I’ll stop by.’ He knew he was going to have to sell it all over again, but he could do that. Desailly was a cautious man making a rash move, it was not surprising that he would have to coax him. He could do it. After all, he had always known at base that he could not stay at arm’s length forever. He had always known himself to be the one outside the circle, the one who had to work eight times harder than anyone else just to get a fraction of what they claimed by right. They who knew nothing about anything, who travelled the galaxy bringing their ignorance like a blessing.

He knew. He knew how to bear the stares of the people in the streets when you were the only one with the dark blue skin of an off-worlder. How to go to bed in a strange place and sleep sound. How to make yourself into somebody else and never go home again. They had taught him, perhaps because they could not learn it themselves and they needed someone like him; someone they despised, to do the jobs they preferred to overlook.

There were birds screaming over the river when he crossed the bridge to the palace. Their harsh calls sounded like the flying creatures on the shore outside his father’s house on Teyro, wings beating the surface of the water, throwing up great plumes of spray that caught the light and threw it back, refracted, over the boat. Skeemas, they were called, for the noise they made. His brothers and he had spent long hours learning to imitate them. They’d killed them for their grey and blue fur, which his mother used to cure and sew into coats for sale in the market, but their flesh was so tough and greasy they would only eat it if they were desperate.

They had eaten enough skeema stew in his childhood, when the catch was small or the winds too strong to put out or simply when the taxes were too high and the fish prices too low. His brothers went out with their father, working, but though he was never a fisherman he was the one who had seen to it that they never had to resort to skeema again.

He could see them now, small from the distance, standing as if in an image projected on to the palm of his hand, his father and his brothers in the boat he had paid for, his mother and sisters in their new dresses next to the house with its new turf roof and painted beams. Behind them, half hidden by the shadows of the eaves, was a smaller boy, with a shock of hair flattened down from brushing and a gap where his front tooth had been.

It had fallen out the week before they came to take him away, he remembered his mother worrying that it would be a reason for them to change their minds. The family did not know he was there, one lost child among all the others they had lost. He didn’t mind, it was not as if they would recognize him now. One of the first things he had learned was not to miss them, to keep them closed off in their image from everything else he had become. To keep himself there with them, cleaned and done up in his best clothes for the city people to take.

He looked up and saw that he was almost at the palace gates. Gently, with infinite care, in his mind he shut the projection away.

***

‘I get the impression,’ Desailly said, ‘that you’re the one to talk to. I could discuss this with Special Envoy Ar’Quila, but I don’t think I would get anywhere. I could discuss it with Par’Lennan, but to be frank, he’s an idiot and I think he would only have to ask you, later, what to do. So I come back to you. Do tell me if I’m wrong.’

Du’Fairosay smiled. ‘It depends what you want to say.’ ‘What do I want to say? What do I want to say?’

Desailly got up and paced to the long windows overlooking the courtyard.

‘I want to say that I am starting a war here that I cannot finish. I am taking on an enemy that I have spent my life fighting and know I cannot beat. I am enveloping this planet in a tide of blood so deep that none of us will live to see it turn and I need to know that you will keep your promises. I need to have it from you, yourself, in person. I need to be sure that the Chi!me will stand aside and let us deal with the ViaVera leadership at the meeting and I need your assurance that you will still be there afterwards, to deal with the reckoning, because reckoning there will be.’

‘Maybe not,’ Du’Fairosay offered. ‘Maybe the fight will go out of them when their Caduca is killed and they will disperse to their homes. Maybe there will not be anything left to do.’

‘That’s bollocks and you know it. They don’t have homes, if they had anything to return to they wouldn’t be there. We’ll have to fight them until every last one of them is dead and there are many. If you don’t have the stomach for it, tell me now, because if you tell me later you will have the blood of a great many innocent people on your hands. I need to know you are with me on this, because if there is even the slightest doubt…’

Du’Fairosay cut in. ‘There is no doubt. We have said what we will do and we will keep our word. We were sent here to assess the situation and this we have done. We have concluded what needs to be concluded about this. You know we cannot take sides openly, you know we have to be seen to be openhanded, to want only dialogue. That is the UP way, and as we walk the galaxy it is UP’s reputation that we must maintain.’ He smiled at Desailly.

‘But only fools and children believe that everything can be resolved by pleading. UP is all about helping people find their own answers, but sometimes a little force is necessary before those answers can come into view. As agreed, you may bring an additional force to the talks. The security will not stop you. It will allow you to wipe ViaVera’s leadership out. And when you have done that, we will do everything we can to clean the stain of ViaVera from the face of this planet, because ultimately, as the Ambassador has said, we cannot tolerate violence. We are about law and order and we will help you uphold it. Does that satisfy you? I cannot do anything else to prove it.’

Desailly took a long breath. ‘Yeeesss. Yes, I suppose I will have to be satisfied with that.’ He turned towards Du’Fairosay, dark against the sunlit window. ‘What will your Ambassador make of this, do you think? Does she even know?’

‘The Ambassador is committed to the cause of peace,’ Du’Fairosay replied, austerely, ‘far too committed to allow that commitment to be occluded by inconvenient facts. Ambassador Ar’Quila understands as we all do that the first good is obedience. She will do what it is necessary to do; that and no more.’

He could not see Desailly’s expression, any more than he could read the tone in his voice. ‘Poor Ar’Quila,’ Desailly said.

***

Then he’d stepped outside and he’d met her as she was leaving her meeting with the President.

‘Fairo! Fairo!’ she’d called. ‘Where are you going?’

‘You deserve a bit of luxury.’

Her hand slipped through the curve of his arm, her body breathing against his side.

‘They’ve gone from people who could only communicate through killing to people who are prepared to talk to each other.’

Her voice was light and happy, sure of success. He couldn’t think of any way to stop her.

‘We’re going to do it. I really, really believe we are going to do it.’ The appalling words went on and on, the whole way back in the transport to the hotel. She didn’t reach for him again, but all the while the imprint of her fingers lay on his skin beneath his shirt; her touch so clean it burned.