Empery (13 page)

“Her need follows the path of dependence.”

“But she wasn’t like this before,” Sujata said, taking her own heartstone in hand. “On Ba’ar Tell she was confident, playful. She came to me, not the other way around. Nothing would have happened between us if that hadn’t been true.”

“This is your world, Sujata. It frightens her.”

“Why should she be frightened? I’m as new to this Unity as she. But I find nothing frightening here.”

Allianora smiled. “Because you have something important to do. You have worth-making tasks enough to occupy you fully—as they did before she came. But you are her whole life now.”

“I know that,” Sujata said resignedly. “But I don’t want to be.”

“Because of the responsibility you feel toward her?”

“It’s an unhealthy way to live, for either side.”

“Don’t judge so harshly. None of us can fully escape that which we learn with the uncritical mind. You were able to introduce her to a new pattern because she was secure that the old was there for her to flee to. It was a game, an adventure. She was testing herself with the forbidden, and it took hold of her. Now she is here, without that security. All she has is the old patterns driven into her as a child.”

“She never showed me this face before.”

“She had no need to. What you describe is the way in which Ba’ar Tell women are taught to hold their mates. What you despise, men cherish because it brings gratification to them and peace to the household. If she is true to the pattern, you will never hear her complain, no matter how unhappy she becomes. One of the rules of compromise is to swallow your own unhappiness.”

“She has shown that already,” Sujata said unhappily. “Allianora, I cannot share my home with this sort of woman.”

“Then do not.”

Sujata said nothing, and Allianora nodded. “I know. If you have conscience, you are as much a prisoner of her dependence as she is. How deep are your feelings for her?”

“For the Wyrena I knew six months ago, very. For this stranger using her name and face—”

“You know the choice, then,” Allianora said. “You can turn her out, solving your problem by increasing hers. Or you can swallow your own unhappiness long enough to help her to grow, against her will. That way you may rediscover the Wyrena you thought you knew—”

That was when the interruption came: a grating buzz in Sujata’s right ear and a louder, more musical message alarm sounding from Allianora’s terminal in a far corner of the room. As Allianora rose from the table Sujata’s right hand went to the small depression behind her ear. With a practiced motion she pressed the skin-covered stem twice: once to silence the alert and once to retrieve the message.

“Comité Janell Sujata: Chancellor Blythe Erickson wishes to advise you that a special session of the Steering Committee, Unified Space Service, has been called for 20:00 hours, Day 134, A.R. 654, in the customary place. Comité Janell Sujata—”

As the message began to repeat, Sujata pressed the stem again to silence the transceiver and looked to Allianora, now standing by her net. “I presume yours is also about the Committee meeting?”

“Yes,” Allianora said, standing at the net and studying the display. “How very odd—at night, and with only an hour’s warning.”

“So it is unusual? I wondered.” Sujata stood and reached for her blouse. “Are you going to go?”

“Are you?”

“I have to,” Sujata said matter-of-factly. “And I’ll be doing well not to be late. Could you call down to the terminal and reserve a seat? Or two, if you’re coming.”

“But we weren’t finished. I hate being interrupted. I don’t like leaving
xochaya
with so much still to talk about and so little resolved—”

Sujata flashed a helpless, resigned smile. “What can we do? The Chancellor calls, for whatever reason.”

Erickson had not intended that four days would slip by between the decision itself and its execution. In reflecting on her meeting with Wells and Berberon, only one course of action had recommended itself to her, and it was one best carried out quickly. The problem was that the Committee would not stand still.

In calling a meeting, Erickson needed to give only an hour’s notice, not the three days that was her custom. For this particular session she determined from the start to give Wells as little time as possible to work on the rest of the Committee. But key individuals kept placing themselves more than an hour away—most notably Wells himself. By the time she was ready to move, he was already gone, on his way downwell in the middle of the night.

By the time Wells returned the next day, Sujata had left to spend a long day reviewing productivity and safety problems with the staff of the Cluster B processing station, half a million klicks away—a good three hours even traveling by high-gee sprint. Then it was Wells’s turn again, off inspecting the sentinel
Guardian
, under construction in Yard 104. His shuttle was due back at Central in slightly more than twenty minutes;when it docked, all five members of the Committee would be on-station for the first time in four days.

Wells’s trip to Earth troubled Erickson deeply. On orbit she could keep close tabs on anyone wearing a transceiver. She had no such authority on Earth, and her informal sources had returned few details of Wells’s brief visit. Aside from his general destination and the time elapsed between his landing and return, she knew nothing, had no clue who he had seen or what his business there might have been. It took little imagination to concoct ominous answers. She could only hope that, confident the next move was his, Wells had moved slowly enough to leave her an opening.

Ka’in was the first to arrive, followed in short order by Rieke and Loughridge. Erickson sat in her alcove and made small talk with Rieke, using the Survey chief as a buffer against the curiosity of the others. As the others wandered in by ones and twos, both speculation and complaint were effectively squelched by Erickson’s presence, though an occasional stray comment reached her ear from the corridor outside.

Wells arrived with five minutes to spare, looking somewhat worn and wrinkled from his travels and sporting a smear of lubricant along the right forearm of his Service blouse. He nodded politely to Erickson as he took his place, then turned his attention to the slate he carried.

Those who had lingered outside in the corridor seemed to interpret Wells’s arrival as a signal that the meeting was about to start. They followed him in en masse, moving to their seats in a strange kind of silence.

Sujata had been the farthest away and so was, unsurprisingly, the last to straggle in, breathless as though she had run all the way from the terminal. When 20:00 hours came, Prince Denzell and Elder Hollis were nowhere to be seen, but that did not matter; only the five who shared the center with her would have anything to say about what happened next.

“First, I want to apologize for finding it necessary to call all of you away from whatever was occupying you this evening,” Erickson said, slowly scanning their faces. “I promise you that although what we are about to consider is important, it will not require much of our time. The sole purpose of this meeting is to consider a Chancellor’s Request for withdrawal by a sitting member of the Committee. No other business will be discussed.”

There was a stirring, but Erickson did not pause long enough to allow it to become an interruption. “The reason cited in defense of this Request is Chancellor’s privilege. Although all authority does proceed from the Chancellorship, the fact is that the Director of any branch has considerable discretionary power. It is not possible for the Chancellor to exercise thoroughgoing and continuous oversight.

“Nor should it be necessary. The Chancellor has the right to know that the executive officers acting in her name are also acting in accord with her stated objectives and principles, even if they should personally disagree with them. It was evident the last time we gathered here that a fundamental disagreement exists between Comité Wells and myself. Unfortunately I no longer have full confidence that Comité Wells accepts the condition and principle I just described.

“I want to make perfectly clear that I am requesting the withdrawal of Comité Wells solely on the basis of Chancellor’s Privilege. I do not mean to imply in any manner or degree that Comité Wells is unfit for his post or to suggest he has deliberately abused his authority—nor do I believe that either of those is true. Comité Wells has been a dedicated member of the Service, and I would like to see him continue with the Service in a different capacity.”

Erickson touched her console, and the secretary took over.“Comité Wells, the Chancellor has requested that you voluntarily withdraw from your position as Director of Defense and a member of this Committee. Do you accede to this request?”

“I do not,” Wells said firmly.

“Comité Wells declines to withdraw,” confirmed the secretary. “A vote on removal is in order. Comité Wells, do you wish to make a statement?”

“I do.”

“You have one minute and twenty seconds.”

Wells took several of those seconds to compose his thoughts, pursing his lips and staring at the recording pylon in the center of the arena. Then he straightened up in his seat, folded his hands across his lap, and raised his head to look directly at Erickson. He spoke softly at first, but his eyes were hard and unyielding.

“I appreciate the Chancellor’s effort to spare me public humiliation by couching her demand in the least contentious terms, by cloaking it in the most admirable principles,” Wells said. “I am only sorry that my conscience will not permit me to do the same.”

Shifting forward in his seat, Wells continued in a voice suddenly steel-edged and commanding. “The fact is that this vote has nothing to do with Chancellor’s Privilege,” Wells said. “This vote is about survival. If you vote as Chancellor Erickson asks, you are voting for timidity, for weakness, for vulnerability. You are voting to prolong the terror with which we’ve already lived for more than a hundred years. You are voting, should it come to that pass, for our dream to become a nightmare, for our people to again die screaming under the weapons of an alien race.”

He sat back in his chair, gripping the armrests tightly with his hands. “If you don’t believe that can happen, if you’re confident the Mizari are nothing more than the boogeymen in a sixty-thousand-year-old scare story, then you should vote as Chancellor Erickson wishes you would. But if even part of you knows or fears, as I do, that the Mizari are still a threat to us, then there is only one way you can vote and only one course the Service can take—”

“Comité Wells’s time has expired,” announced the secretary. “A vote on removal is ordered—”

“—which is for us to rise to their challenge and defend the human community with every tool at our disposal,” Wells concluded emphatically. “
That
is what this vote is about.”

Hearing him and looking at the faces of the rest of the Committee, Erickson felt a chill of foreboding. Her request had been reasonable, dispassionate, proper—and a waste of time. In his first few words he had shunted aside the substance of her appeal. The rest of his words fueled and then exploited their anxieties.

I made the mistake of thinking it was enough to be right
, she thought regretfully.
But he answered with symbols, with emotions that undercut reason. It wasn’t a fair fight—how could I win?

While Erickson and Wells locked gazes, the question appeared simultaneously on the consoles of the other four members. All that was required of them was two small movements of the hand: one touch to vote, another to confirm. It took very little time.

“By a vote of one to three,” the secretary announced impassively, “the removal of Comité Wells is not agreed to.”

Even anticipating the outcome, it was a blow to hear it confirmed. As Rieke’s dismayed gasp betrayed her vote, Erickson lowered her head and momentarily closed her eyes. When she looked up again, Loughridge was gloating openly, his face split by a mocking grin. Wells sat impassively in his alcove, his eyes on his folded hands. If he felt either relief or the exultation of victory, neither made it to his face. Erickson doubted that she was doing as thorough a job of hiding her feelings.

“The meeting is adjourned,” she said hoarsely.

For a long moment no one moved. Then Berberon scuttled out, shaking his head as he went and starting an exodus that left Erickson and Wells alone in the chamber.

“I think—I think it would be a good idea if we talked,” she said at last.

“I agree,” Wells said quietly.

“Not tonight. Tomorrow sometime. I’ll leave a message with your office.” Wells bowed his head politely as he stood. “I’m at your disposal, Chancellor. Tomorrow.”

She did not look at him as he climbed to the upper level and left the chamber through the doors at her back. But when he was gone , she touched her console and the doors closed to enforce her privacy. For a long minute she sat as though frozen, taking her breath in shallow, noisy gulps and fighting the wave of despair that threatened to overtake her.

But shortly there came a moment when resistance and surrender seemed equally pointless. In that moment she slipped to one side in her chair, covered her eyes with a hand as though ashamed, and began to cry—a chest-heaving, almost tearless possession that filled her with fury over her own helplessness to prevent it.

It took twenty minutes for Erickson to collect herself sufficiently to think about going home. Even then there was no spring in the steps that carried her up out of her alcove, no life in the downcast eyes that guided her to the doorway. The doors slid open obediently at her approach, but when she tried to pass through them, she was brought up short by a man who stepped out from the shadows along the far wall and into her path.

“What is it?” she asked wildly, her head whipping up as she tried to focus on the face.

“I’m sorry if I startled you, Blythe,” Felithe Berberon said gently. “But before you talk to Wells tomorrow, you should talk with me.”

“I’m going home,” she said in a fragile voice. Lowering her head, she started to brush past him.