The end of the Street was a disappointment. From the elevator Elarn had noticed that the Streets were open at the end, and she had hoped, illogically in retrospect, that she might be able to see down to the actual surface of the planet from there. Instead, a fence spanned the gap between the rimwards buildings, and an uncharacteristically polite notice on the pylons supporting the fence warned of a current that could cause serious injury or even death.
Looking through the man-made fence at the man-made forcedome reminded Elarn that she was in an artificial environment, enclosed and fragile. She turned on her heel and headed back to the hotel.
By the time she reached the Manor Park, breakfast was almost over. She forced herself to eat something, then returned to her room, determined to rehearse properly, but the com was chirping to say she had a message. For a giddy moment she thought it might be Salik, but instead Shamal Binu’s overly made-up features sprang into life on the holo-plate.
‘Elarn, darling, have you seen the reviews?’ she gushed. ‘Tremendous! I’ve attached links. Anyway, the reason I’ve commed you at such an outrageously early hour - and on what is a day of rest for you - oh yes, I forgot, well, regardless of your religious persuasion, I don’t want you working too hard - anyway, darling Elarn, the most
fantastic
news: we’ve got the cathedral! Isn’t that
utterly fabulous
? Day after tomorrow, evening gig - sorry, concert. This is the big one, so there’s a rehearsal tomorrow. With a choir - real, live choristers! They’ll do the
Requiem
- lovely piece, that - and a couple of others, largely up to you what. Anyway, you need to be there at eleven tomorrow morning for rehearsal, although I’m afraid you’ll have to make your own way, my dear- I’m so rushed, you wouldn’t believe it. Anyway, good luck, and we’ll speak soon.’
Elarn sat down in the comfortable chair beside the bed, put the com onto wide display and checked the links. There were only two reviews, but both were positive.
Her manager on Khathryn had been nagging Elarn for years to do the occasional live concert, and he’d been understandably taken aback when his client had suddenly taken it into her head to go on tour, and not even locally, but in a different part of human space altogether, and starting in a system renowned less for its cultural history than for its unique and brutal system of government. Add to that Elarn’s insistence that the tour be arranged at very short notice . . . well, he was probably still questioning his client’s sanity.
Elarn could hardly blame him. She’d had no choice but to use her professional life to get her to where she needed to be; she couldn’t have afforded to travel to Vellern as a tourist and even if she had been willing to wait for a trading ship, it would have been slower as well as less comfortable, and the urgency of her mission had not allowed her that option. The tour might be a pretext, but it was still pleasing to be praised - though she was relieved that there were only two reviews, both in what looked to be obscure publications. Anyone casually perusing the entertainments listings would be unlikely to notice her name. That was good. Whatever Lia was doing now, Elarn doubted she had any active interest in the arts.
Lia . . .
She wondered how Lia would react if she
did
find out Elarn was here. Someone, presumably Jarek, had done a good job of hiding the girl when she left Khathryn - it had taken her people years to track Lia down. Jarek, Elarn’s impetuous brother, was at the bottom of it - he was the one who’d brought Lia to Khathryn in the first place, so really, this was all his fault. Presumably he had provided the information that led the Sidhe to her, though Elarn had no idea why he would decide to do that . . . well, all that was immaterial now. The Sidhe would doubtless be watching all interstellar departures from the Tri-Confed system in case Lia - or Elarn herself - tried to escape.
And if Lia did find out that Elarn was here, what then? Seven years was a long time, and the child abomination would be an adult now, with a human face and alien motivations.
You cannot help but love us . . .
Elarn shivered. Before leaving Khathryn, Lia had come to say goodbye, perhaps even to ask forgiveness for the disruption she had caused, but she had seen Elarn flinch when she came into the room. Lia had looked at her sadly and said, ‘I wish you could understand how it is: you cannot help but love us; we cannot help but use you.’
Elarn thought how much easier it would be if she could hate Lia, but while she could be appalled that she had formed an attachment to such a creature - albeit without knowing its true nature - she could not blame anyone but herself . . . or perhaps her foolish brother, wherever he was now. But if she actually found Lia and then could not kill her, she would be in a far worse position. She must act without hesitation or remorse. She had no choice. That was what she had to remember.
The com was chirping again. She hit the accept button, composing her face into a smile in case it was Salik.
It was Ando Meraint, looking mildly apologetic. ‘Medame Reen, I’m sorry to disturb you, but I wanted to let you know that I have exhausted the usual research sources and have failed to find a match on the picture you gave me. There is one last thing I can try, and that’s to check the private pay-to-access holo-libraries in case there’s an image of her in any of them.’
How tempting to tell him not to bother, to give up now . . . Elarn sighed to herself; she had to explore all possibilities, for
they
would find out if she hadn’t. ‘Yes, please. I do have to be sure. Presumably that puts the cost up?’
‘I’m afraid so, medame. I can’t say exactly how much, but I’d estimate another twenty to thirty per cent. No need to pay now, you can settle up when I have the results of this last search.’
‘And there aren’t any other implications?’
He looked quizzical. ‘There are no legal restrictions, of course - or is that not what you mean?’
‘No. I’m concerned whether - hypothetically - the person being searched for might be alerted to the fact that someone is looking for them, once you start looking in more obscure places.’
He smiled. ‘That’s highly unlikely. These are libraries kept by individuals and private concerns; the chances are the people in the images were not even aware they were being recorded.’
‘Then please do go ahead.’
‘Thank you. I’ll contact you if I find anything.’
Her personal funds were shrinking at an alarming rate, but then, money was no good to a dead person. She shut off that line of thought before fear could stir the scream into life. Instead, she stood up and started breathing deeply, then turned on the music and made herself start on a few basic scales to warm up her voice and to take her mind off the past. But it wasn’t working; the scream was still there, ready to warp her music into something alien and terrifying. She turned the accompaniment off and sat down again. She knew she could give a good performance, she had proved that last night. Right now, she needed to do something completely different.
She had been here nearly two days and as yet had seen very little of Khesh City. Today might be a good day to investigate whatever passed for Kheshi culture. There must be some, somewhere, although what she had heard of Kheshi music spanned the spectrum from saccharine crooning to tuneless screeching without ever approaching good taste. Still, they had a strong tradition in the dramatic arts. Perhaps she should see a play.
And maybe she should also invest in a personal com. The pace of life here was so much faster than she was used to. It would mean Medame Binu could bother her, but the agent was obviously busy enough that she wasn’t intruding on Elarn any more than was necessary to keep her functioning as a source of income. If she had a personal com, the infobroker could tell her at once if he had any news, though, God willing, the next call she got from him would be to say there was no trace of Lia anywhere in any records he had access to. And there was Salik. She would give the number to him, of course.
She had been half-watching the time out of the corner of her eye, subconsciously counting down the minutes till noon. Not that many now. It wasn’t worth going out and risking missing his call.
However, there was something useful she could do while she waited, given her desire to get close to Consul Vidoran. She could try to find out more about him.
It didn’t take long. Even using only the free com services, there was plenty on all the serving politicians in the Assembly. Shamal Binu had mentioned a trade deal, so Elarn followed the links to reports on a piece of legislation Salik had been involved in. During Yazil’s last term hosting the Assembly, certain Yazil politicians had apparently passed some import/export laws that had meant financial benefits to certain Yazil territories. Salik had not repealed the legislation, but had extended it to cover Khesh City, though not the Kheshi territories dotted throughout the system. Luorna had been left out, and had suffered financially as a consequence.
Further digging into the Consul’s background revealed that he had business interests in Khesh City - in such unromantic areas as waste collection, reclamation and building maintenance - which would benefit by this legislation. Just a few days after the Assembly took up residence in Khesh City, a Consul from Luorna had spotted the loophole, and had attempted to challenge Consul Vidoran over it. As he had been absent from the Assembly at that time, the Luornai objection was sustained, and moves were now being made to change the law - but not before Consul Vidoran had made a hefty profit for himself.
So, he had used his position for personal gain. But a random scan of other Consuls’ files turned up numerous similar attempts to use the system for profit. He was apparently no better and no worse, just possibly a bit more successful. And, Elarn told herself, if she was seeing this here, then, by definition, all these—these
misdemeanours
had been found out and dealt with. If you played the system on Vellern, you did so in the knowledge that the system could turn round and bite you back. In fact, such accountability made a pleasant change from a culture where greed and errors of judgment were denied or blamed on scapegoats - the Khathryn way of things.
The thing she had a problem with was that the punishment for getting it wrong was
death
. Especially such a relatively trivial misdemeanour - compared with some his colleagues had got away with, by the looks of things. It had to be the timing, so close to the change of Assembly, and the fact that he had not been present to defend himself, that had put Consul Vidoran on the hot-list.
She was closing down the open files - it was gone midday - when something caught her eye. A couple of weeks ago, just after his return to Vellern, Yazil City had sent an operative of their League of Concord as ‘liaison and honour guard’ for Consul Vidoran. She remembered Salik’s bodyguard, his cold gaze, the casual way he had broken that downsider’s neck. Now she knew why: Scarrion was an agent of Yazil City, a Screamer. Elarn shuddered. Surely now, though, with the legislation that had earned Consul Vidoran a favour from Yazil City being repealed, their agent would be recalled? She opened searches on Scarrion, but in marked contrast to the information available on politicians - presumably to allow the people to choose who was to succeed and who was to die - there was surprisingly little on the agents who enforced the Concord. Her initial search turned up only unverified rumours. The best she could find was that the Screamer was in disgrace in his own City, and had applied for an extended sabbatical here, which had been granted by his League of Concord who - reading between the lines - were glad to be shot of him for a while.
The com chirped, and Elarn hit the pick-up key. The cold, disturbing data was replaced by the friendly face of Consul Vidoran.
Elarn insisted she would pay, but she let Salik Vidoran choose the venue. He directed the pedicab to a café on the edge of the Gardens where the diners sat at wooden tables under a canopy of trees. The ever-present bodyguard moved off to sit at a nearby table. Elarn found herself tuning out the section of the view that included him.
The menu was not extensive, but neither was it expensive. Elarn ordered a stir-fry while Salik opted for a chili pasty that was, he assured her, very bad for him. She offered to buy something special to drink, but he declined; he had to return to the Assembly in the afternoon. ‘I’m being kept busy organising my own demotion,’ he observed wryly.
They talked of more personal matters than they had at dinner last night. Elarn felt as though they had known each other for weeks, even months, certainly more than two days. Salik told her he had been born in Khesh City and his father had been a politician, who’d suffered the same fate he himself had so recently avoided. When he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, his mother had refused to speak to him again. She’d moved off Vellern to one of the Kheshi habitats. He was an only child - there being population restrictions on raising children in the Three Cities, another hidden rule, thought Elarn. He had been married briefly, but it had not worked out and he had lost touch with his ex-wife.