The Ordinary (6 page)

Tuk came to consciousness in the courtyard lying beside a fountain with something that looked like a shaggy fern hanging over its lips. Melda helped him up, though she behaved as though he were porcelain, and attempted to avert her face from his in order to avoid offending him. Tarma asked him, rather coldly, if he was all right. “It appears they're taking us out of town in these wagons right away.”

“I'll be fine,” said Tuk, brushing off his coveralls, averting his eyes.

Her mouth was working as she looked at him. The Erejhen were all around, packing bags into the wagons and tying them in place, adding provisions and water. She managed to hold her tongue. As for him, he had the look of a drunk awakening after a long binge, as though he were not quite sure where he was.

Without any warning the Krii appeared in the street with his retinue, sent in his householder to announce him, and followed himself in very short order, the briefest interval their ideas of politeness would allow. Jedda had once watched the full entry ritual in a wealthy house in Charnos, one of the southern cities, when the exchange of greetings, while it was admittedly being drawn out for her entertainment, went on for nearly a twentieth of the day. This considered, one might as well say the Krii burst in the room.

“How kind of your Malin to send you to say good-bye to us.” Tarma bowed her head and spoke to her in her coolest voice.

“Malin has no words for you,” the Krii said. “I've come to watch you leave.”

Tarma turned her back on them all to get in the wagon. She was seething. No one would look at her or speak to her for fear she would remember it later. But everyone was waiting, except Tuk An, who sat with his smooth, thin hands folded in his lap. Tarma stared at him. She was standing on the wagon step when she slowly turned and said to the Krii, “You have no idea how sorry you'll be for this, all of you. If we really are sending our army and navy here, we will overrun you in a matter of days. You have no idea how many of us there are.”

“There are thirty billion of the Hormling on this world alone,” the Krii said. “We already know the number. I hope for you to have a pleasant journey.”

Jedda, settled beside the comfortable warmth of Himmer, waited for the wagons to move, keeping her gaze on the carpet, where it could do no harm. Something about what the Krii had said caused her to remember the remark. Within moments, the escort that would ride with them called out a signal and the party lurched forward. She watched the Krii in the distance, tall and slender, dark skinned and dark haired. “Good-bye, good Kirin,” she muttered, and Vitter looked at her.

Two days in the hard wagon, then the journey south by putter. As soon as they were in the putters, the stats came online again.

Jedda found the return of the link unpleasant, disliking the texture of the grip in her palm, the notion that it could reach inside her to some interface of technology she had never truly understood. She kept the link to the minimum level, answered the prompts that popped up as soon as she was linked again, let the stat do its work, transmitting data about her physical condition to the satellite network beyond the gate, from there to whatever place in the data mass to which the information was assigned.

Their stats were apparently only partly functional, however, and at dinner in the inn in Karsk that was what everyone was talking about. Kurn had been trying to tap into some of the news streams but the stat kept returning the no-uplink message that could mean anything. “Maybe they're only partly getting through,” she said. She had braided her hair and wrapped it like a pastry on top of her head; it only made her face look rounder.

“Or maybe we're being secured,” Himmer said, and everybody looked at everybody else.

Tarma dined with them, and they were on stat through the meal, though everybody felt the difference. The link can make you afraid sometimes, as though there are ears listening on every side, and Jedda could remember nightmares when she first slept with hers, after her first implant, long ago when she was small.

Putters carried them to Evess. On the journey Tarma kept discipline by insisting the party remain on the link all day, a strain for a person, she admitted, but necessary in such a dangerous situation. This made for deadly silence, broken only by the most inane chatter, in the passenger compartment.

No one had dared to ask her what she knew. No one had spoken to Tuk An at all, and he had said nothing since the party left Montajhena. Was an army really coming?

As the party neared Evess in the early afternoon, however, the stats went dead again. Jedda, who was online at the time, trying to find a newscast, felt the link dissolve, the retinal access flaring then fading in that peculiar way. She felt, for the first time in years, relief at the silence of off-line. She looked at the others in the putter, the back of Tarma's head in the seat next to the driver. Everyone was glancing at everyone, but Tarma sat rigid, her still-glasses in hand, apparently useless.

The delegation was welcomed at the consulate after another ferry ride through the dark canals, the smells of fish and salt growing stronger as the ferry carried them briskly through the water traffic. The atmosphere was changed from their first visit, when Tarma had learned Malin was not in Evess any longer. The complex had been full of Anin people and their animals and carts, but today only the Hormling were visible.

Tarma outranked everyone in the place and reminded them of the fact from the moment she stepped out of the putter, just in case anyone had forgotten since her previous visit. A functionary brought her something to warm her hands and escorted her into the consular living quarters, a modern structure the Hormling themselves had built. Himmer took Jedda's arm and walked inside with her. They were all being rushed to rooms in the secured part of the consulate, the Hormling moving them along silently, obviously frightened, because their stats had failed, too.

Jedda remembered later a fleeting montage of rooms, faces, voices, the feeling of the Hormling architecture closing around her cramped and tight. Everyone managed to say something deferential to Tarma. Finally the party arrived at a room off a courtyard with Enforcement personnel all around them, and Tarma took a seat there.

The consul Fimmin Merekethe, one less letter than Himmer, and two less than Tarma, rushed into the room as soon as he heard. Tarma had been properly offered a cup of warm fish-head broth and sipped it while she listened. They spoke quietly and Himmer was with them, but the rest of the delegates were led to another room along the courtyard where they were seated and offered warm broth and rice crackers. Jedda asked about her baggage and the functionary politely consoled her that all her belongings were being placed in her room. She'd find them waiting for her as soon as Tarma and the consul were done.

That conversation ended suddenly when Tarma burst into the courtyard looking for Tuk An, who had come with the rest of the delegates to the room for those of lower rank and who was contentedly sipping a second cup of broth. She glared at him and had him conducted into the other room.

The consular staff refused to talk to anyone in the delegation, in order to avoid inadvertently informing those of lower rank of some item of information before Tarma and Himmer should learn it. So this left the rest in the small room waiting.

Jedda took the opportunity to share a bowl of dried seaweed with Vitter, who had found a corner for himself near a portrait of Craken the Great, one of the disputed representations dear to the Imyni Faction; the consul was from the Imyni. Vitter had been studying the portrait and greeted her when she sat near him, almost as though he had hoped she would join him. He gestured to the painting. “Imyni clumsiness, to make Craken look like an ape. We were fully evolved when we came to this planet.”

“If you believe the krys.”

“You don't?”

“Some of it. Not all.”

“Which is your rykka?”

“Nadi. I come from there.”

He nodded. “What do you think this wait is all about?”

“Tarma's upset. She's letting people know it.”

Vitter stared into space. “They've played their cards, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Orminy.” When he looked at her again, she could read the decision in his eyes, that he would risk trusting her further, that he would speak. She had to wonder why. “We were sent here to provoke an incident. When we were on stat, my ministry was sending me all the rumors that were flying around Béyoton. The Orminy wanted to provoke an incident here in order to justify sending troops to occupy the cities in the south of Irion. A first step toward colonization.”

“You said this was one rumor.”

“This was the most consistent rumor. There's always a root of truth in the most consistent rumor.”

Jedda looked into his eyes and found a warm, full presence there. In her way of thinking, this was as good as a kiss. She decided to risk something herself. “Your ministry does not seem to be in agreement with the rest.”

“I'm not in agreement with the rest,” Vitter said, “and many of my colleagues agree with me. We have access to information, in particular, about the movements of our beloved ruling class, and we don't like what we're learning.” He paused. His face firmed, became clear for a moment, as if she saw him from fifty years ago. “I work in the Logistical Section of the ministry. We have been allowed a certain freedom to explore our own ideas, in particular, on the subject of Irion.”

Some of the staff from the consulate were wheeling in trays of food, salad and bread, the fourth meal.

Vitter looked her in the eye. “I'm taking a chance in speaking to you this way.”

Jedda nodded. “I certainly might be a spy, I suppose. For someone. I might not even know it myself.”

“With the stats not working, it's easier to trust,” Vitter said. “Even though I might regret it later.”

“What are your ideas about Irion?”

He shook his head. “It's yours I want to know.”

“What do you mean, mine? I'm a merchant. I trade here.”

“You're also a linguist,” he said. “I've read some of your formal uploads on the Ironian languages.”

She was silent for a while. Those uploads to which he was referring, and the scholarship that they required, were why she lived. To come here and learn, and to set down what she had learned, to try to share some of what she was finding in the structure and grammar of Erejhen, in case it should make a difference to anyone. “I'm pleased to hear that.”

“One thinks one's work is lost,” Vitter said, and the music of his voice contrasted with his sharp nose and weak eyes, “because one is only a voice among so many billions of others, not only those of today but the voices of the past as well, still alive in the living data, so very, very many of us. Yet something happens, a gate opens,” he gestured toward the sea, and she knew which gate he meant, “and suddenly the work of one person, a handful of people, stands out again.”

“Now I suspect you're flattering me.”

“No, I'm not. In fact, I think this could all be rather dangerous for you. It was what destroyed your friend. Why he could not return.”

Her heart was pounding. She knew which friend he meant. Two of the seven delegates had now mentioned Opit. She was Hormling, she understood that coincidence could not explain this. Two of seven members of one of the most important delegations in recent history.

Or a Minister might know him, and that would be worse. This is the end of the well-known joke. She might even know a Minister, or a Minister might know her, and that would be worse.

“Don't be frightened,” said Vitter, watching with that steady gaze. “I'm not telling you this because I plan to turn you over to Tuk An's staff.”

“What do you mean, Opit was destroyed?” she asked. “Why do so many people know about him?”

“We'll need to continue this conversation at more length, later.” Vitter gestured toward Tarma, who had entered with the consul and was preparing to speak. “But the short answer is, he had learned so much about the Erejhen that the Orminy were considering putting him on-link permanently, so that others could have access to his mind.”

He turned and walked away from Jedda with such a sour look on his face you would have thought they had been arguing, and Jedda understood when she found Tarma looking at them both.

The gaze moved elsewhere and Tarma seated herself, took a breath, and began. “Fimmin Merekethe and I have been speaking about the situation in which we currently find ourselves. There have been some complications, and since we have no stat capability at the moment, I'm simply going to tell you what we know.”

Fimmin had his hands behind his back. Himmer appeared then, standing as far to the side of Tarma as he dared.

“The Orminy has taken our situation here quite seriously, and is sending a naval battle group with full support vessels and air cover. The arrival has been timed to coincide with my return to Evess. This action has been undertaken in order to bring our relations with Irion into a more acceptable status. It is unwise of the strong to behave weakly, as Craken wrote, and this is what we Hormling have been doing in our relations with the people of Irion. We have been behaving as the weak when we are the strong. For twenty years we have studied these people and traded with them in hopes that they might benefit from our knowledge; but in all that time we have been met with no better than primitive superstition of a type with which we have no experience in all our history. Our people have urgent need for the resources and the open land that are to be found here, in order to defeat a much more powerful enemy, and to bring an end to this war with the machines, who are the true danger to us. We cannot win the Metal War when have nearly exhausted every resource we can find for ourselves or expect to find for our children. So we see the opening of this gate, and the opportunity represented by this new and unlooked-for territory, as a sign from God that we are still favored in his sight.”

She was understandably vague on which God she meant, naturally.

“We do not intend to cause any harm to the people of Irion, and we have informed our Anin emissaries of this fact. I have been in contact with our warships by local wave, which is still operating, and can tell you that they have the following orders from the Orminy Council. Our warships will enter the bay and our troops will come ashore and occupy Evess. This force will include the 43rd battle group from the continental embargo force along with two air flights, the 93rd and the 112th, returned to Senal from the battle to retake Choss. Another battle group will move behind them and will embargo the city of Charnos and troops will occupy that city as well. A third battle group has been ordered to occupy Narvus. These are cities that will be familiar to the Hormling who work here in our consulate. These are the chief cities of the Anin people and when we have occupied them, within three days, if all goes well, we will then, we suspect, find Malin and her people more tractable in their negotiations with us. Nothing more is planned until we have secured these cities.”

She sat for a moment as if she were very pleased with herself. That was when Jedda noticed that the silvered stripes had begun to fade from her hair. For some reason, this detail was the one that stayed with Jedda when the assembly was dismissed.

“The delegates who accompanied me on this harrowing journey to meet with this barbarian woman are to be congratulated on their bravery and their work and are to be treated as guests of the tenth rank while we are here in the consulate. The first of the battle groups has already passed through the Twil Gate without incident, and we believe the rest will follow with equal ease. Our ships will enter the bay at dawn, and our troops should be landing shortly after. At that point I will take charge of the affairs of Evess until a governing board can be appointed with consent of the Ministries.”

She rose from her seat and walked out of the room with Fimmin in tow. Himmer hung back, and as soon as Tarma cleared the room, he approached Jedda. “You should go to your rooms and wait. Ask one of the protocol people, they've been told to assign you to a suite next to mine.”

This meant he had given her status as his lover, at least for the moment, and, if Jedda guessed right, only as a matter of expedience. Jedda took his advice and found a protocol attaché who was able to find someone with a list of room assignments and who had her conducted there. Lucky that the consulate here was forced to operate, in certain local matters, with manual methods like paper and lists and handwritten journal entries, since without stats any other Hormling institution would have collapsed into chaos.