Rules of Conflict (16 page)

So, Captain Colonel-Killer, what did I do to deserve you?

Hals closed the ServRec, then traced along its sides with her
fingertips. “So—”

Jani squeezed the arms of her chair.

“—you’re Two of Six. The Eyes and Ears.” The woman offered a quick
half smile.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jani replied carefully.

“I’d just begun my sophomore year at Montserrat when the news
arrived that six humans had been chosen to study documents sciences at the
Rauta Shèràa Academy. That made my decision to major in paper rather than law
easier for my parents to swallow.” Hals tipped back her chair and tapped her
fingertips together. Index to index, middle to middle. “How did that bit of
doggerel go? One of Six for Tongue of Gold, Two for Eyes and Ears, Three and
Four for . . . for—”

“Hands of Light.” Jani felt the heat crawl up her neck. “Five and
Six for Earthly Might.”

Another fleeting smile. “The late Hansen Wyle was your mouthpiece.
He was One of Six.”

“Yes. Ma’am.” Jani glanced around the lieutenant colonel’s spare
office. Of all the things she expected to be questioned about, this hadn’t even
made the top twenty. “Gina Senna was Three. Carson Tsai was Four. They were
musicians—musicians impressed the idomeni. That’s what
Hands of Light
means.” She waited for Hals to respond, but the woman only watched her
silently. “Dolly Aryton was Five. Her mother was a Neumann. Ennegret Nawar was
Six. He’s the
N
in SCAN. Hence the Earthly Might.” She wished she had
the nerve to sit quietly, wait out Hals’s silences. Memories of past
calls-on-the-carpet returned
en force
. The dry mouth. The ragged
thoughts. The gabbling to fill the relentless quiet. “We were eighteen when we
wrote it. We thought it sounded very enigmatic.”

“I’m not asking you to defend it, Captain.” Hals paused and held a
hand to her mouth. Her jaw flexed as she suppressed a yawn. “As you no doubt
recall,” she continued, eyes watering, “Foreign Transactions covers a rather
broad range of dealings. These usually involve records and equipment transfers
to the colonies. We do, however, occasionally monitor transactions with the
idomeni. Unfortunately, as you also no doubt recall, that five percent of our
duties can take up eighty percent of our time.”

Jani nodded. “Food shipments into Rauta Shèràa Base used to result
in some marathons. I remember the one time we tried to ship in beets. The
idomeni have beetlike vegetables, but they’re grown in the Sìah valleys in the
central plains. They don’t grow in the northern regions, so the Laumrau didn’t
want to let them in.”

Hals leaned forward. “So what happened?” She spoke quickly. More
than polite interest—she
wanted
to know.

“We gave up after three straight days with no breaks. Nobody liked
beets that much.” Jani could still remember the hot, stagnant air, the
simultaneous collapse of everyone’s deodorant, her CO at the time nodding off
in a corner. “Sometimes, you have to give them what they want. It usually pays
off. They gave in to us later when we wanted to bring in peanut butter. Of
course, we were willing to fight for peanut butter. I think they knew that.”
She chuckled, until a glance at Hals’s blank expression silenced her.

“You make it sound so homey, Captain.” She fingered a corner of
Jani’s file. “Why are they so picky about their food?”

Ask me something easy, like the meaning of life.
“They
place great value in order—that significance cuts across sect lines. Order that
nourishes the body also nourishes the soul. Eating certain types of food at
certain times maintains that sense of order. Exposure to certain foods only
during certain seasons of the year. A balanced diet taken to the extreme.”

“Don’t they ever eat anything just because it tastes good?”

“They’re not a very sensual people when it comes to appetites,
ma’am. One theory has it that their brains work similarly to those of humans
who’ve been stressed to the point of burnout. They only feel extremes. Nuance
escapes them.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I’m not a xenoneurologist.” Jani wavered under Hals’s probing
gaze. “No, ma’am, I don’t believe that. They’re alien. We just don’t understand
their nuance.”

Hals’s eyebrows arched. “Do you include yourself in that
we
,
Captain?”

Jani hesitated, then shook her head. “No, ma’am. However, I also
don’t underestimate their capacity to surprise.”

Hals nodded wearily, as though she’d had the idomeni capacity to
surprise up to
there
. “Ask Lieutenant Ischi to provide you the
background information concerning our involvement with the Lake Michigan Strip.
I’ll be interested to hear your take.” She tapped absently at her comport pad.
“By the way, during your time in Rauta Shèràa, did you ever know a female named
Onì nìaRauta Hantìa?”

“Hantìa?” It had been years since Jani had heard that name. She
recalled a smooth, arrogant voice, like barbed satin. “She was member of a
scholarly skein, training to be a Council Historian. The equivalent of an
archivist.”

“She may have been an archivist then. She’s the Vynshàrau’s chief
documents examiner now.” Hals opened, then closed Jani’s folder. “Did you know
her?”

Yes.
Jani watched Hals fidget.
But I think you knew that
.
It looked as though her new CO possessed a capacity to surprise, as well. “We
were at the Academy together.”

Hals nodded. “I thought it might be likely, judging from your
ages.” She looked at Jani. Through the fatigue in her eyes, a hard light shone.
“It will be nice to have someone with your experience in this department.”

“Ma’am.” Jani knew a dismissal when she heard it. She stood,
rubbed her damp palms against her trousers, then came to attention. “Good
morning, ma’am.” She backed up one step, executed about-face, and headed for
the door.

“Captain.”

Here it comes
. Jani stopped. Turned slowly. What would it
be? A question about Neumann? Evan?

Hals sat back, her brow furrowed. She wanted to ask Jani
something
—that
was obvious. Maybe she was having trouble deciding where to start. How do you
question mutiny, when you’re on the business side of the table? “Never mind,”
she said. “Make sure you see Ischi about the background report.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jani walked out of the office, left a note for the
absent dogsbody requesting the report, then cut through the anteroom into the
desk pool. Most of the chairs were filled; a few of the uniformed occupants
paused in their work to cast her curious glances.

She entered her office to find someone from Systems bent over her
workstation. She fled to the quiet of the women officers’ lounge, locked
herself in a toilet stall, and slumped against the cold metal partition.
Crazy.
Her heart pounded. Her stomach ached.
They want the wait to drive me crazy.

By the time Jani felt settled enough to return to her
office, the Systems tech had departed. The presence of a steel blue folder in
the middle of her desktop told her that Ischi had delivered the background
report.

She closed the door and sat at her desk. Paged through the file.
Inserted the attached data wafers into the workstation slot. The mechanics of
work calmed her. She slipped the report on like a favorite shirt, and read.
Eventually, she sat back and propped her feet up on the desk. Laughed out loud
a few times.

It was the funniest story she’d read in years.

“Ma’am?”

Jani glanced up to find a freshly fitted-out Ischi standing in the
doorway, holding a steaming mug in one hand and a covered plate in the other.

“I thought you might want something to eat.” He held up the plate
with the hopeful air of a father trying to persuade his child to come out from
under the bed. “You’ve been in here for over five hours.”

“I have?” Jani checked her timepiece, and whistled. “I have.” She
lowered her feet to the floor. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“A couple of us did hear you laugh once or twice.” Ischi walked in
and let the door close behind him. “Three times, maybe.” He set down the
cup—the heavenly aroma of true-bean drifted across the desk. “We tried to
figure out what was so funny.” He removed the protective cover from the plate
to reveal a sandwich and a piece of cake, and placed it before her.

Jani wrapped her hand around the mug, then motioned for Ischi to
sit. “What the hell was Anais Ulanova thinking?” She sipped the coffee. Black.
No sugar. Strong enough to warp enamel. She almost moaned in rapture. “She
orders a lakeskimmer to transport mixed foodstuffs to the Commerce Ministry,
even though the idomeni embassy sits smack between them and the verandas where
all the idomeni take meditation facing the water.”

“
Exposure to unknown food.
” Ischi perched on the edge of
his chair, elbows on knees. “
Breaking the sacred plane.
Those phrases
have been ringing in our ears since this began. Tsecha and the other priests
spent three months decontaminating the embassy, and they’re still not happy.”

“And to keep it from happening again, all they want are land, sea,
and air rights to a two-kilometer strip stretching from their embassy proper,
across the lake, to the eastern side of the Michigan province.”

“And scanning rights. And boarding rights. It’s the scanning
rights that we’re worried about. They could monitor flyovers of experimental
craft.” Ischi’s clear young brow furrowed in consternation. “I think they’re
overreacting, personally.”

“You’re lucky they’re still in Chicago.” Jani took a bite of the
sandwich. Cold roast beef on buttered bread, with slices of pickled hot pepper
on the side. “If the Oligarch had had his way, he’d have recalled the whole
crew back to Shèrá. Morden nìRau Cèel has been looking for an excuse to cut
diplomatic ties with us ever since they reopened.” She bit a slice of
pepper—Ischi cringed as he watched her chew. “It was a miracle that Nema talked
him into only decamping to the Death Valley enclave. I wonder how he twisted
his arm?”

“Nema?” Ischi chewed his lip in puzzlement. “Oh, the ambassador’s
other name.” He eyed Jani intently. “Would you call him that to his face,
ma’am?”

“No. To his face, I’d call him
nì Rau.
Or
nì Rau ti nì
Rau
, if I wanted to be really formal. Or
inshah
—that’s informal High
Vynshàrau for
teacher.
Not that he’d mind if I called him Nema, but I
wouldn’t feel right.” Jani pondered her half-empty cup. “So, Lieutenant, what’s
the word. Did the Exterior Minister insult the idomeni on purpose?”

Ischi’s guileless manner altered. His eyes narrowed. His voice
deadened. “That’s Diplomatic’s call, ma’am. They don’t discuss those matters
with us.”

“Why not? You’re part of this enterprise. You can watch as well as
they can.”

“We’re not qualified, ma’am. So we’ve been told. We’ve been told a
lot of things, lately.”

He wants to say more.
That was obvious as hell.
He just
needs a push.
And unlike with Hals, she could provide the helping hand.
“Out with it, Lieutenant,” she said coldly.

Ischi’s words tumbled, laced with frustration and anger. “We’ve
been getting questions from Diplo for weeks, ma’am. ‘When’s she coming? When’s
she going to be here?’”

“Their point?”

“Burkett, ma’am. Brigadier General Callum Burkett. Head of Diplo.
He said you’re halfway to being idomeni and you have no business being in a
uniform, much less as a member of FT.” Ischi swallowed. “I’m quoting, ma’am.”

“I understand.”

“FT doesn’t hold with that opinion, ma’am.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Inasmuch as we’re allowed to express opinions. Ma’am.”

Jani stood, stretched her stiff back, and walked to her window.
“The first students the idomeni allowed into the Academy weren’t diplomats, but
documents examiners. To the idomeni, the order is in the paper, and order is
all. They expect you to participate. They expect you to be able to make
decisions and negotiate binding agreements because, I guarantee, their
examiners sure as hell can.”